Palestinian Christians from Gaza, occupied West Bank and Jerusalem marked a second dark Easter in punishing conditions and the War of Israel against Gaza.
In the Gaza Strip, where no food or help was authorized by the Israeli army for almost 50 days, people observed Easter on Sunday at the Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City in the middle of death and destruction.
Easter celebrations were limited to religious rituals when families have canceled other rallies fearing that more bombs are abandoned by Israeli war aircraft, which killed dozens of people in the besieged enclave on Sunday.
Israeli forces bombed the enclosure of Saint Porphyrius in October 2023, just days after the start of the war in the aftermath of the attacks led by Hamas against Israel. Israel said he was targeting “terrorists”.
This attack killed at least 18 displaced Palestinians who had sought refuge in the church. More than 51,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since the start of the war.
During a brief appearance before thousands of Catholic pilgrims meet in Saint-Pierre square for the mass of Easter outdoors in the Vatican, Pope Francis renewed his call to a ceasefire in Gaza.
He also called the Palestinian armed group Hamas and other groups to release the remaining captives held in Gaza.
Strong restrictions in occupied West Bank
The Israeli authorities have prevented many Christians, including the Palestinians, from accessing holy sites for Easter in occupied West Bank.
Israeli police clashed with Christian faithful and even a priest as they were trying to access the occupied Holy-Spulcher church in Jerusalem-East.
The old town of Jerusalem has been transformed by the Israeli authorities into a military outpost, said Fathi Nimer, a Palestinian Policy stock market to the Al-Shabaka reflection group.
“Some would say that there are now more soldiers, security and police than faithful around the Holy Sepulcher,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune de Ramallah on Sunday.
“There are dozens of control points in the city, and these limitations have not only had an impact on Palestinian Christians in West Bank, but also of Jerusalem itself and in the territories of 1948.”
Nimer said that people had been beaten and that Israeli officers and spectators led insults and insults to Christians.
About 6,000 Palestinians from the West Bank received permits to attend Easter services this year, and even the Vatican representative in Palestine was denied entry into the church.
Nimer said that a tightening of Israeli strangles on holy places in recent years has led to a declining number of worshipers of Palestinian origin.
“All of this is part of the wider war against Palestinian culture and identity. Israel essentially says that they have an exclusive claim to Jerusalem and all of Palestine,” he said.
“ I have no license to go as a pastor ”
Mitri Raheb, Palestinian pastor and theologian and founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, argued that current Israeli restrictions are among the most difficult.
“Myself as a pastor, I have no license to go for Holy Week, which is the most important week for Christians throughout the year because Jesus was crucified and raised in Jerusalem,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“The Palestinian-Christian community which has been there for 2,000 years cannot go to celebrate and mark that where everything has happened.”
Raheb said that the incentive against Palestinian Christians, in particular members of the clergy, was also increasing with dozens of incidents of Israeli settlers reported this year.
“One of the first things you read in the Church on Jesus is that it was like a lamb led to the massacre. But when you hear this today as Palestinian Christians, you think that it is all our people led to slaughter, considering what is happening in Gaza.”
Israeli settlers and politicians, supported by armed police and soldiers, also took more and more the association of the Al-Aqsa mosque to carry out Talmudic rituals and challenge its status quo.
Non-Muslims are not allowed to worship of the third most sacred site in Islam, which is located in East Jerusalem, as part of the status quo agreement to which the Israeli government affirms that it remains committed.
Pope Tawadros II, chief of the Orthodox Church Coptic of Egypt, strongly condemned the Israeli assault in Gaza.
“Palestinians are subject to the most horrible forms of injustice in their daily lives in the midst of the destruction of their homeland,” he said on state television during Easter celebrations.
