Israel restricts Palestinian Christians from Easter worship in Jerusalem

Palestinian Christians this yr faced stringent restrictions on their Easter worship in Jerusalem.

Traditionally Israel has allowed Christians living within the West Bank to enter Jerusalem for per week at Easter with a purpose to mark the death and resurrection of Jesus on the places where they really happened.

This yr nonetheless, the Israeli authorities said they might only be issuing 6,000 permits for Palestinian Christians to go to sites just like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which marks the empty tomb of Jesus.

In fact only 4,000 permits were issued, mostly to church leaders, and the permits also got here with the restriction that the holder couldn’t stay overnight in the town. Effectively this meant that many permit holders couldn’t attend services as they might should travel long distances and go through Israeli checkpoints.

The increased Israeli restrictions are a response to the 7 October attacks in 2023 by Hamas, which resulted within the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians.

According to Al Jazeera many Palestinians attempting to enter Jerusalem’s Old City have been detained at checkpoints. At previous Easters there have been reports of Israeli police beating Palestinian Christians and pilgrims from overseas as they attempted to achieve the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Israeli actions because the 2023 attacks by Hamas have been highly controversial. The war that followed the attacks has claimed the lives of well over 50,000 people, mostly Gazans and has reduced large parts of the Gaza Strip to rubble.

While within the US support for Israel amongst Christians has remained strong, the story is different elsewhere. Recent surveys of Christian views of Israel and Judaism in Britain and Ireland have suggested low levels of support from Christians in those countries, particularly among the many young.

Just 19% of young British Christians support Israel in its current conflict, with around a 3rd supporting the Palestinians. In Ireland the figures were 11% supporting Israel and 45% siding with Palestine.