Jerusalem expects quiet Easter as fears of violence deter pilgrims

Churches and traders in Jerusalem are braced for a quiet Easter after a fall in pilgrim numbers over the past two years blamed on fears of continuing violence.

The number of tourists visiting Israel in January this year was down 24% on the same month in 2014, according to the ministry of tourism.

Easter usually sees a peak in the number of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem’s Old City to mark the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

This year, Roman Catholics and Protestant denominations celebrate Easter on 27 March, and the eastern Orthodox churches mark it on Sunday 1 May – an unusually long gap.

The number of people taking part in last weekend’s traditional Palm Sunday procession – from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, via the Garden of Gethsemane and the Via Dolorosa – was estimated by church sources to be 15,000, compared with more than 25,000 last year.

On Good Friday, thousands are expected to retrace the footsteps of Jesus along the 14 stations of the cross to the site of his crucifixion, many carrying heavy wooden crosses which are available to rent by the hour or day.

On Sunday, pilgrims will pack into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which stands on the site where Jesus was crucified and buried. Five weeks later, the church will also be the scene of the orthodox churches’ stunning, if hazardous, ancient holy fire ceremony. But Jamal Khader, the rector of the Latin Patriarchate Seminary, said there had been a significant fall in the number of pilgrims visiting the Holy Land since the war in Gaza in 2014. The spike in violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli towns over the past six months had been an additional deterrent.

People were discouraged by government warnings to tourists and the reluctance of insurance companies to provide cover, he said.

“The streets in the Old City are almost empty, especially around Damascus Gate,” he said. There have been several stabbings at the main northern entrance to the walled city in recent months.

“Many tourists are changing their schedules to avoid the Old City. But it’s not just tourists and pilgrims, local Palestinians avoid it too because of the heavy presence of [Israeli] soldiers.” Abu Ahmed, a shopkeeper in the Old City, said there were far fewer tourists and pilgrims this year. “It is very quiet, very bad. I am hardly selling anything,” he said while arranging his display of wooden crosses, incense and other religious souvenirs near the Holy Sepulchre.

Bethlehem, the city of Jesus’s birth, which is in the West Bank and cut off from Jerusalem by the Israeli-built separation barrier, had been even harder hit over the past two years, Khader said.