From 1967 until today, the Israeli occupation has carried out more than 100 attacks against Christian holy sites in Palestine. Half of those attacks took place in the occupied city of Jerusalem. The year 2022 witnessed a significant decline in the number of faithful who attended prayers on Holy Saturday at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, with only 1,500 people allowed by the occupation authorities to attend the prayers there, a measure that was widely rejected by the churches. This year, the occupation decided to ramp up its restrictions on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, limiting the number of participants in the Holy Saturday celebrations to only 1,800 people. Since the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, restrictions on Christian and Islamic sanctities have been on the rise, while tens of thousands of Israeli settlers have been easily ‘visiting’ the Al-Buraq Wall during the Jewish holidays. In fact, the year 2019 witnessed the largest numbers of Israeli settlers praying there, and an estimated number of more than 100,000 settlers broke into the plaza. The restrictions are not limited to putting curbs on the number of participants, but rather include depriving Christians in Gaza access to the holy sites in Jerusalem by cancelling the permits that in recent years were granted to only a few. This is not the first time that the occupation has prevented and impeded the exit of Gaza Christians to the West Bank, especially after the 2014 Israeli aggression on Gaza. About 1,500 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, out of a total population of more than two million people. Last year, the Israeli occupation forces prevented scout teams from carrying out their annual scout parade through the Christian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City, when the Israeli police set up barriers in areas close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At that time, several young men and women were injured after being attacked by Israeli police on their way to the church. In 2021, the Israeli police assaulted dozens of Christians, including monks, in the alleys leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in occupied Jerusalem, while on their way to celebrate Holy Saturday according to the Eastern calendar, and several were arrested. Economic restrictions are also another bitter form of the common Israeli restrictions, with merchants around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher complaining of declining sales and tourism due to the Israeli measures. According to the merchants, the ISraeli occupation authorities impeded the arrival of worshipers to the Church in 2021 and 2022, resulting in a significant decline in commercial activity. Since the beginning of this year, Christian places of worship have been subjected to five attacks by the Israeli occupation and its settlers. On the first day of this year, settlers smashed more than 30 tombstones on Christian graves in the Protestant Cemetery in Mount Zion in occupied Jerusalem. On March 19, two extremist settlers stormed the Church of the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in occupied Jerusalem and tried to vandalize its contents and attack churchgoers. Earlier this year, the cemetery of the Episcopal Church was attacked and crosses were broken by ISraeli fanatics, while racist graffiti was spray-painted by extremist Israeli settlers on the walls of the Armenian Patriarchate. Such acts of aggression are part of an ongoing process of annexation that, in light of the Jewish supremacist ideology of some of those leading Israel, will not stop until their “Greater Israel” is consolidated, with full annexation over the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency (WAFA)