Hallowed halls: Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel. Photo: Andrew Price

As Christians prepared to mark Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion, the opening of Holy Week in Jerusalem unfolded not in ritual but in restriction.

On Palm Sunday, 29 March, senior Catholic leaders were prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Mass. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and Father Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land, were stopped by Israeli police as they attempted to access the church without procession or public gathering.

In a joint statement, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land described the incident as “a grave precedent”. 

For the first time in centuries, the heads of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land had been prevented from marking Palm Sunday at the site itself.

“Preventing the entry of the Cardinal and the Custos… constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure,” the statement said, describing the decision as “tainted by improper considerations” and “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo”.

The Status Quo, formalised under Ottoman rule and maintained through successive authorities, governs custodianship and access at Jerusalem’s holy sites. 

It is widely regarded as a fragile but essential framework managing overlapping religious claims, preserving Christian authority over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Muslim authority over Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its disruption carries both symbolic and political weight. 

Israeli authorities framed the restrictions as a security measure linked to a widening regional conflict. That justification sits within a broader escalation that now extends well beyond Gaza, with Israeli and United States strikes on Iran triggering retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, including missile and drone strikes targeting Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates.

Governments across the region have warned of a widening confrontation involving state and proxy actors, raising risks to energy infrastructure, trade routes and regional stability.

Within this environment, measures imposed in Jerusalem are presented as part of a wider security calculus. Yet the Palm Sunday incident cuts directly across a narrative that continues to shape global understanding of the war in Gaza, that it is fundamentally religious.

If that framing held, religious identity would map onto protection and access. It does not.

Restrictions cut across faiths. 

The blocking of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre sits alongside ongoing limitations at Al-Aqsa Mosque, pointing to a system defined less by religious distinction than by control of movement.

During Ramadan, Israeli authorities imposed age restrictions and permit requirements that prevented many Palestinians from the West Bank, particularly younger men, from attending prayers. Even those granted permits faced uncertainty at checkpoints.

Since the latest escalation, closures have extended across multiple sites in Jerusalem’s Old City, affecting Christian and Muslim spaces alike. The language used is security. The effect is administrative control over religious life.

The same system shapes Christian access. Palestinian Christians in the West Bank require permits to enter Jerusalem during Easter, with approvals limited and often restricted to older applicants. Even when granted, access remains contingent on passing through checkpoints. 

In Gaza, where movement has long been tightly controlled, Christian communities have been unable to travel to Jerusalem for major religious observances for years. Their Easter is marked in isolation.

Across Jerusalem, religious practice is mediated through permits, checkpoints and security authorisations, irrespective of denomination. That convergence has not gone unnoticed.

Omar Suleiman, founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, pointed this week to the parallel restrictions affecting both Christians and Muslims, noting that Christians were being barred from their churches while access to Al-Aqsa remained heavily constrained.

For Palestinian Christian pastor Munther Isaac, the implications are immediate and lived.

“As Christians around the world celebrate Palm Sunday with joy,” he said, “I hope they remember that their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem itself — where these events took place — are facing restrictions and are at times prevented from even reaching their churches.”

Isaac has consistently rejected attempts to frame the conflict as religious, arguing instead that it must be understood through power, accountability and the structures governing Palestinian life.

That distinction matters.

Zionism, as a political project, is not synonymous with Judaism as a religious tradition. The modern Israeli state operates through the former, grounded in nationalism, territorial control and security imperatives. It does not function as a neutral guarantor of religious pluralism, despite Jerusalem’s centrality to three faiths.

Yet global discourse often collapses that distinction. Framing the conflict as religious offers a form of narrative clarity. It reduces a complex political reality into a civilisational story that is easily mobilised and widely understood. It allows external actors to align along lines of identity and belief.

It also obscures the legal framework at the heart of the conflict. East Jerusalem, including the Old City, is regarded under international law as occupied territory. This designation carries specific obligations, including the protection of civilian life and the preservation of existing institutional arrangements, including religious access.

Restrictions on movement, including access to places of worship, are therefore not simply security measures. They are subject to legal scrutiny within the framework of occupation.

International law does not operate on the basis of religion. Civilian protection, proportionality and collective punishment are legal questions, not theological ones.

Even international responses to the Palm Sunday incident reflected this. The emphasis was on freedom of worship and the preservation of established arrangements, not on religious grievance.

On the ground, the implications are clear.

Christian communities in Gaza and the West Bank have been displaced, killed and restricted alongside their Muslim neighbours. Their population has steadily declined over decades, shaped by emigration, economic pressure and the constraints of occupation. 

In Bethlehem, once predominantly Christian, they are now a minority. In Gaza, the community numbers only in the hundreds. Their presence disrupts the binary narrative often projected onto the conflict.

A conflict framed as religious cannot easily account for clergy denied access to their own sacred sites or for worshippers across faiths navigating the same system of control. As Easter approaches, Jerusalem carries its usual symbolic weight for Christians worldwide. 

But on the ground, access to that symbolism is neither equal nor guaranteed. The events of Palm Sunday do not signal a religious rupture. They expose something more precise. 

This is not a war of faiths. It is a system of control that operates across them.