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Every year thousands of Israelis march a route through Jerusalem and the annexed Old City, ending at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray in Jerusalem.

On Sunday, a large Israeli flag was unfurled at the Western Wall plaza.

It featured a photo of Pope Francis at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and concluded: "May his memory be a blessing."

In her first months on the job, Lipstadt defended a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews kicked off a Lufthansa flight for refusing to wear COVID-19 masks; a liberal Jewish group harassed by Orthodox Jews when attempting to celebrate bar and bat mitzvot at the Western Wall in Jerusalem; and Jews and Muslims up against a European ban on the religious-ruled slaughter of goats and other animals.

Crowds waving Israeli flags and shouting anti-Arab slogans gathered outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate before marching to the Western Wall through the Muslim Quarter - an act seen by Palestinians as a provocation.