JERUSALEM, Saturday, May 4, 2024 (WAFA) – The Israeli occupation police deprived Christians access to the Old City of Jerusalem to celebrate religious rituals on Holy Saturday, which precedes Easter.

Local sources reported that the occupation police tightened their measures and beefed-up their military deployments at the gates of the Old City, and obstructed the entry of Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to revive religious rituals.

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.

 Y.S