Ramallah: In anticipation that the Israeli government would restrict the number of Palestinian Christians allowed to attend these celebrations, Christians of all denominations prepared to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem.

Many were discouraged from taking part in the festivities, according to reports from Arab News, because Christian families from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip needed to obtain permits in order to enter the Old City and because military checkpoints were set up there and on roads leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Ghadir Al-Najjar, a Christian from Bethlehem who now resides in Jerusalem, noted that this year's Easter festivities are particularly special because they fall on the same day as Ramadan. She claimed that Christians who desired to take part in the Holy Saturday festivities at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were likely to have arrived a day or two beforehand and hid in a friend's or relative's home in the Old City in order to enter the church on the designated day without having to go through the checkpoints.

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According to Jack Nassar, a Ramallah-born Christian with a Jerusalem identity card, Jerusalem is more important to Christians than Bethlehem or Nazareth. He claimed that during the Easter season, the Israelis would occasionally grant entry permits to parents but not to children, or the other way around.

Nassar added that the Israeli police at checkpoints in the Old City discriminate between Arab Christians and foreign Christians, and that many Christians in the West Bank no longer attend Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the traffic jams at the checkpoints leading into the city from Bethlehem and Qalandia.

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"An Israeli policeman stood and shouted at the thousands of Christians who flocked to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to attend the celebrations, saying, "The Arab Christian stands on the right and the foreign Christian on the left," which incensed the Palestinian Christians," during the Holy Saturday celebrations.

Nassar asserted that five years ago, while taking part in celebrations for Good Friday, he was assaulted by Israeli police in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. When he told the police that he and his two friends were "Arab Christians without a sect," he claimed that they were questioned by the police and that one of them "violently" pushed him out of the church and beat him.

According to Israeli authorities, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre can only hold a small portion of the visitors who swarm there during Easter. Archbishop Munib Younan, a former leader of the Lutheran Union, told Arab News that they use the excuse that the church can't hold thousands of people to prevent Palestinian Christians from entering the Old City. Nassar disagrees with the Israelis' assertions as well.

Why do they limit the number of Christians entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre but not the number of Jews permitted to enter to pray at the Western Wall? Limiting the number of Christians who can attend Easter celebrations is unacceptable, he said.

The leaders of Christian churches in the Holy Land, according to Nassar, are not Arabs and as a result, do not comprehend the suffering experienced by Palestinian Christians living under Israeli occupation. As a result, they do not exert pressure on the Israeli government to allow Christians to freely travel between the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel as well as to and from Jerusalem.

According to Nassar, "their interests and the interests of the countries they came from are all that matter to them."

On Sunday, April 2, hundreds of Christians from around the world participated in the Christian Palm Sunday march, which started at Beit Faji Church on the Mount of Olives and ended at the Church of St. Katrina in the Old City. Participants carried the flags of their respective nations along with palm and olive branches. However, since Israeli police would probably detain Palestinians who carried the Palestinian flag, many wore T-shirts with the flag instead.

The Custos of the Holy Land's attorney general, Father Ibrahim Faltas, told Arab News that Christians were outraged by the recent wave of attacks on Christian cemeteries and churches in Jerusalem. He noted that the leaders of the churches had written letters of protest to the Israeli authorities, who had labelled the attackers as "mentally ill," in response to the attacks.

According to Father Faltas speaking to Arab News, "we still don't know the reasons behind the attacks."

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In order to allow a large number of Christians to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday (April 8), Faltas revealed that meetings between the heads of churches and Israeli authorities were held. This was done to prevent the violence from last year from happening again.