Israel blocks Latin Patriarch from Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday for ‘first time in centuries’
Palestinian Christians suffer regular persecution from Israel's ultra-Orthodox and religious nationalist Jews
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was prevented from holding Palm Sunday mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre "for the first time in centuries" on 29 March, after Israeli police blocked him and others from entering the church.
Citing security concerns over the Iran war as a pretext, Israeli police stopped Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Friar Francesco Ielpo while walking to the church, which was built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected from the dead nearly two thousand years ago.
"As a result, and for the first time in centuries, the Heads of the Church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," the Latin Patriarchate said in a statement.
"This incident is a grave precedent, and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem," the statement added.
Police said they had rejected a request from the Patriarchate for a Palm Sunday exemption, claiming that rescue vehicles could not access the site in the case of a mass casualty incident resulting from the war with Iran.
Farid Jubran, a spokesperson for the Patriarchate, told Reuters that police had been informed that the mass would be held privately and behind closed doors. "But still, despite this communication, they insisted on acting this way," he explained.
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week and commemorates the day Christians believe Jesus entered Jerusalem, welcomed by his followers who placed palm leaves in his path as he rode into the city on a donkey. Easter is celebrated a week later, to mark Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection.
Christian pilgrims typically throng to Jerusalem and nearby Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to commemorate Easter. But few have come this year, after Israel and the US launched an unprovoked bombing campaign on Iran a month ago, causing Iran to respond with missile and drone attacks.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticized the Israeli action. Denying entry to religious leaders "constitutes an offense not only to believers but to every community that recognizes religious freedom," she stated.
France's President Emmanuel Macron condemned the decision as well, saying that it "adds to the worrying increase in violations of the status of the Holy Places in Jerusalem."
The Vatican did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.
Under Israeli rule, Christians in the 1948 territories and the occupied West Bank suffer regular persecution, including spitting on clergy, physical harassment, and the vandalism and destruction of churches, cemeteries, and other Christian symbols.
The harassment is carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jews and Jewish religious nationalists and goes largely unchecked by Israeli police.
Since June of last year, Jewish settlers have regularly targeted the Christian town of Taybeh in the West Bank, including setting fire to Palestinian cars, spray-painting racist and threatening graffiti, burning homes, and vandalizing the ancient Christian cemetery and the fifth-century St. George (Al-Khader) Church.
Earlier this month, Israeli forces blocked Palestinian Muslims from performing Eid al-Fitr prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque for the first time since Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.
Hundreds of Palestinians attempted to pray in the streets and open areas leading up to the mosque after Israeli authorities closed the compound three weeks before, also using the war on Iran as a pretext.
Al-Aqsa preacher Sheikh Ikrima Sabri told The New Arab that worshippers should perform Eid prayers in areas as near the mosque as possible.
"We issued a religious ruling that whoever performs the prayer in the streets and squares leading to Al-Aqsa will receive the same reward as those who pray inside the mosque," Sabri stated.
"This is the first Eid al-Fitr in which Eid prayers are not held in Al-Aqsa Mosque, because it has been closed since the US-Israeli war on Iran. This is an arbitrary and unjustified measure by the occupying authorities that violates freedom of worship and contradicts international conventions and norms," he added.