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Armenian Christians, accompanied by Israeli volunteers, enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)
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Faith Amid Ruins: Gaza’s Christians Mark Palm Sunday

by IMENC News
April 14, 2025

Christians in Gaza City gathered to observe Palm Sunday, the occasion preceding Easter, at the historic St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church. The solemn celebration unfolded just hours after Israeli airstrikes devastated the reception and emergency buildings of the nearby Baptist Hospital.

The joy traditionally associated with Palm Sunday was absent from the faces of worshippers. Typically, a festive occasion eagerly awaited by Christians, especially children, the day is marked by families dressing their children in holiday attire and carrying long candles in a celebratory atmosphere. This year, however, the mood was somber.

|Widespread Criticism Of Israeli Bombing Of Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital|

St. Porphyrius Church, located in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood, stands as the city’s oldest church. Named after Saint Porphyrius, who is buried there, the church holds his tomb in its northeastern corner.

The Baptist Hospital, operated by the Episcopal Anglican Church in Jerusalem, suffered extensive damage in the airstrikes. A nearby church affiliated with the hospital also sustained significant harm.

Situated in a residential area of Zeitoun, the hospital lies close to St. Philip’s Evangelical Church to the west, separated by Umm al-Limon Street.

This street connects Palestine Square in the north to Askula Square in the south, eventually leading to the main thoroughfare, Omar al-Mukhtar Street. Approximately 230 meters south of the hospital stands the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church, built in the fifth century.

The hospital is part of the Shamaa area, which also includes the Latin Monastery Church and a convent for Christian nuns known as the “Rosary Sisters” and “Dar al-Salam.”

Early this morning, Israeli airstrikes targeted the Baptist Hospital in central Gaza, destroying one of its buildings and igniting fires in several sections, rendering the facility completely out of service.

This attack comes amid an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been accused of committing acts of genocide against the population for the past 18 months.

Palm Sunday, the seventh Sunday of Lent marks the final Sunday before Good Friday, which is followed by Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection of Christ.
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On Palm Sunday, Israeli volunteers escort Christian processions to report racist incidents

Volunteers from the Religious Freedom Data Center accompany Armenian, Latin, clerics to and from Church of Holy Sepulchre during their annual holy week ritual

By Sue Surkes for The Times of Israel
14 April 2025, 10:51 pm

The cobbled streets of Jerusalem’s Old City have vibrated for centuries from the stamping of maces held by the festooned “guards,” or kavasses, of the Latin, Greek, and Armenian patriarchates as they make their way to and from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

On Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter, the Armenian procession took place as usual this year. The kavasses, wearing fez hats and ceremonial scimitars — a throwback to their origin in Ottoman times — took the lead, with clerics in black hooded cassocks following behind.

But this year, the march had two modern additions — a police officer in front and another behind, and a group of Israeli volunteers wearing yellow- and lime-colored vests, with cellphones ready to document any untoward incidents along the way.

The cobbled streets of Jerusalem’s Old City have vibrated for centuries from the stamping of maces held by the festooned “guards,” or kavasses, of the Latin, Greek, and Armenian patriarchates as they make their way to and from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

On Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter, the Armenian procession took place as usual this year. The kavasses, wearing fez hats and ceremonial scimitars — a throwback to their origin in Ottoman times — took the lead, with clerics in black hooded cassocks following behind.

But this year, the march had two modern additions — a police officer in front and another behind, and a group of Israeli volunteers wearing yellow- and lime-colored vests, with cellphones ready to document any untoward incidents along the way.

There was one.

Immediately after leaving the patriarchate, Yisca Harani, who set up the Religious Freedom Data Center three years ago to document, report, and submit complaints on racist attacks on Christian communities, spotted a religious Jewish youth spitting in the direction of a cleric.

She rushed to a group of four youths and recorded a conversation (in Hebrew) in which she asked why one of them spat.

“I’ve got phlegm,” he said. Another added, “Because they’re Christians.” She explained that spitting was against the law, after which one said, “Wait until we come and burn you all.”

Harani immediately called the police, and within minutes, officers had detained the youths at a station close to the nearby Tower of David.

A police spokesman later told The Times of Israel that the two were questioned and released, but the incident was under “active investigation.”

The Armenian procession continued without further reported incident into the cavernous interior of the church, which is believed by Christians to contain the sites of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. There, their voices rose in a cacophonous celebration of recitation and song from multiple denominations.

Devotees of the Syriac community bowed as their priests, wearing shimmering gold braid, uttered prayers in one corner.

At the same time, Orthodox Christians, many apparently from the former Soviet Union, lined a large hall crowned by ornate chandeliers.

From beneath stone arches came the choral renditions of the Catholic clerics decked out in red. Believers formed a line to receive Holy Communion.

Some visitors held olive branches, others fronds of palm. Many had braided palms on their heads, commemorating the palm branches the crowds waved when Jesus entered Jerusalem.

The vested volunteers waited to escort the Catholics back to the Latin Patriarchate, this time without incident.

Christians make up less than 2% of Israelis
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, some 180,300 Christians live in Israel, representing around 1.8% of the Israeli population. Nearly 80% of them are Arab.

Harani, an expert on Christianity who works extensively with tour guides, established the entirely voluntary Religious Freedom Data Center three years ago, after a post-pandemic upswing in Christian tourism to Israel and a corresponding increase in abusive behavior by some religious Jews.

The center has a pool of around 70 volunteers, some of whom accompanied Sunday’s processions.

The center also provides a hotline through which Christians can report incidents, and it issues reports.

During the first quarter of this year, the center detailed 44 harassment events, of which 26 involved spitting, six were connected to verbal abuse, and five involved vandalism. Over a third (36%) of the cases inside the Old City were in the Armenian Quarter, which provides a popular and quiet through route between the Old City’s Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall and Mount Zion.

“Those 44 incidents were just what we documented,” Harani explained. “I submit complaints. In 99% of cases, they are closed.”

Harani works with the Jewish People’s Policy Institute and Window on Zion, an initiative of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center that also supplies volunteers for Armenian Patriarchate processions. Last year, she began partnering with the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue on data collection, supplying much information for its recent report on Christian communities. Starting this year, she is harnessing the legal department of the Reform Center for Religion and State (IRAC) to help follow up on cases.

“If we are not active, nobody knows [about these incidents]. The Christians don’t report [them], they’re so exhausted,” Harani said, adding that to spot the abuse, one often needed “a trained hunter’s eye.”

“We are their only hope for order. This degenerate might get four hours in the Old City police station, and another, an order to stay away from the Old City for 15 days. Hopefully, now that we have a lawyer, they will also be charged,” she said.

As The Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman explained on a recent podcast, those who want to justify insulting Christians — often youth on the fringes of religious society — cite Jewish sources that encourage spitting against idol-worshipers, which they extend to Christians. But, added Berman, rather than justifying this kind of behavior, there was plenty of textual evidence showing it violated a range of Jewish religious laws.

The Israel Police said it had detained or arrested “numerous suspects” in Jerusalem over the past year in connection with offenses against Christians and viewed “any form of violence, hate crimes, vandalism, or acts of bullying with the utmost seriousness. ”

It said it “unequivocally condemns the disgraceful behavior of any individual… who harms or attempts to harm Christians or any other person. The safety and security of the Christian communities in Jerusalem is a commitment we uphold with the highest priority.”

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