The Israeli police received orders to prevent the raising of Palestinian flags during Abu Akleh’s funeral

The Hebrew newspaper, “Haaretz” revealed, this evening, Sunday, that the Israeli police had orders to prevent the raising of Palestinian flags during the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which led to the attack on mourners in Mashhad, which led to international and Arab condemnations.
The newspaper reported, quoting unnamed police sources, that the Jerusalem District Police Chief, Doron Turgeman, directed the police to confiscate Palestinian flags and prevent them from being hoisted during the funeral procession in Jerusalem last Friday.
However, Turgeman was not present at the funeral, but was in Germany as part of a police delegation, but his deputy, Danny Levy, replaced him in command of police activities at the funeral.
According to police sources, Turgeman directed work to prevent the raising of Palestinian flags at the funeral, as part of a discussion that took place a day before the funeral, in which he participated from a distance.
During the funeral, police officers confronted the mourners, among other things, over flag-waving. Throughout the funeral procession, in Sheikh Jarrah and then in the Old City, police officers removed flags from the streets and car windows, took them from participants, confiscated some and used force to prevent them from being raised.

זו התמונה שתופסת עכשיו את הרשת בזירה הפלסטינית ומעבר לך.הניסיון להניף את הארון של שירין אבו עאקלה ולצאת בצעדה רגלית מבית החולים הצרפתי בירושלים, המשטרה מנעה זאת בכוח , הארון יצא בסוף ברכב עד לכנסייה ובדקות הקרובות תובא למנוחות בבית העלמין בסמוך לשער יפו. pic.twitter.com/QVrddfvXNd

— Jack khoury.جاك خوري (@KhJacki) May 13, 2022

Israel considers Jerusalem, both western and eastern (it occupied it in 1967), as its capital, and prohibits Palestinian residents of the city from raising Palestinian flags inside it.

During the funeral, policemen were seen standing in a group looking for Palestinian flags in the midst of the crowd as the funeral attendees left the church at Jaffa Gate for the cemetery on Mount Zion. Residents of East Jerusalem, who stood in front of the police for several meters, began warning the people who were waving Palestinian flags, and instructed them to take them down, saying, “The police are arresting anyone who carries a Palestinian flag,” according to the Hebrew newspaper.
The GOI directive states that action should be taken to remove the flag only when there is a “high level of possibility that the raising of the flag will result in a serious breach of the public peace.”
Last year, Minister of Internal Security Omer Bar-Lev approached Police Chief Kobi Shabtai, asking him to limit the confiscation of Palestinian flags during demonstrations and to allow this only in exceptional cases.

The Al-Jazeera correspondent was shot in the head last Wednesday while covering an Israeli military operation in the Palestinian camp located in the northern part of the West Bank, large areas of which have been occupied by Israel since 1967.
In its first account, Israel confirmed that the journalist was killed by Palestinian gunmen, then the Israeli army announced the opening of an investigation into the incident, indicating that all possibilities exist, including that she was killed by Israeli bullets.
Wide criticism was directed at Israel against the background of the police’s behavior during the funeral of Shireen Abu Aqleh, who was buried last Friday in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
Video clips revealed that the police beat the holders of Abu Aqila’s coffin with batons, which almost fell to the ground.