The Higher Follow-up Committee in 1948 occupied Palestine has described the recent Israeli restrictions on the number of Christian worshipers attending Saturday’s Holy Fire ceremony in Occupied Jerusalem as a “siege on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”
In a statement on Thursday the committee said that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) limited for the second consecutive year the number of Christian visitors to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to 1800 people including clerics nuns and church employees.
The committee quoted heads of churches in Jerusalem as saying that the Church and its premises are capable of containing more than 10000 people affirming that such an Israeli measure would deprive thousands of Christians of reaching the Church on Saturday to celebrate the occasion which is considered “one of the most sacred days for the Christian communities.”
“This Israeli siege [on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher] joins the restrictions being imposed on the Aqsa Mosque and the goal is the same which is to restrict freedom of worship especially in Jerusalem as part of the desperate Israeli attempts to enforce another identity on the holy city” the committee underlined.
Meanwhile the IOA reportedly prevented hundreds of Christian citizens from Gaza to travel to Jerusalem to attend the holy event to be held at the Church.
