Ahead of Christmas 2018, Israel banned the Christian minority who live in the Gaza Strip from visiting Christian holy sites and churches in the West Bank and Jerusalem to celebrate Christmas.
Around 5,000 Christians, most of whom are Greek Orthodox, lived in the Gaza Strip before Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed Oslo peace accords in 1994. However, their number dramatically declined because of the continuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Christians in the Gaza Strip, home to 2 million Palestinians, used to travel every year to the West Bank city of Bethlehem and Jerusalem to join Palestinian Christians there to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.
Ahead of Easter 2017, Christian Palestinians looking to enter Jerusalem required the approval of the Defense Ministry's Coordinator of the Government's Activities in the Territories.
On January 26, 2023, Miran Krikorian, the Armenian owner of Taboon and Wine Bar in the Old City of Jerusalem, received a call that a mob of Israeli settlers was attacking his bar in the Christian Quarter and shouting "Death to Arabs... Death to Christians."
When he went to the police, the officer scolded him for bothering to report the crime.
A few days later, Armenians leaving a memorial service in the Armenian Quarter were attacked by Israeli settlers carrying sticks. An Armenian was pepper-sprayed as settlers scaled the walls of the Armenian convent, trying to take down its flag, which had a cross on it. When Armenians chased them away, the settlers began shouting: "Terrorist attack", prompting the police to draw their guns on the Armenians, beating and arresting one of victims.
Hostility by Jews towards Jerusalem's Christian community is persistent and covers all denominations. Since 2005, Christian celebrations around Holy Week, particularly Holy Fire Saturday, have brought military barricades and harsh treatment from soldiers and Jewish settlers alike, with the number of worshippers allowed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre drastically limited, from as many as 11,000 historically during the Holy Fire ceremony to just 1,800 since last year.
Since Israel's current Jewish extremist government came to power, incidents against Christians in Jerusalem have reportedly become more violent and common. At the beginning of the year, 30 Christian graves at the Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery were desecrated.
At the Church of the Flagellation, a Jewish settler attacked a statue of Jesus with a hammer, and an Israeli came to the Church of Gethsemane during Sunday religious services and tried to attack the priest with an iron bar. Being spat upon and shouted at by Israelis has become, for Christians, "a daily occurrence". Victims of these incidents report little is done by police to catch or punish attackers.
"My fear is that these perpetrators are known, but they enjoy impunity," said Munib Younan, bishop emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. "That's the reason they are doing this."
The Franciscans have set up cameras in all corners of their holy sites, which are becoming more closed off from the public due to the persistent attacks.
Ideologically, the primary source for this targeting of Christians and their holy sites comes from extremist Jewish groups, according to community and church leaders.
"Their mind is obsessed with the 'Messianic syndrome'. They want to take over the whole land," said Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.
Jews know they are above the law, and they can harass Christians, even with guns, and get away with it. They call Christians "pagans" and "idol worshippers".
"The minister of national security is a lawyer who used to defend extremist Jews attacking Christian and other sites," said one Armenian youth who was attacked in January, referring to Itamar Ben-Gvir. "What do you expect when the highest-ranking official in the equation is the most extremist?"
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