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Raymond J. de Souza: Note to Iran — holy sites should be off-limit in war

Holy to the three Abrahamic faiths the Old City of Jerusalem must be protected

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How grave was the offence given by the Israeli police in barring the two most senior Catholic clergymen in Israel — the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Custos (“guardian”) of the Holy Land — from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week?

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So grave that President Isaac Herzog called the Patriarch, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, within hours to express his “great sorrow” over the matter, the result of security precautions taken after Israel began its war with Iran.

Raymond J. de Souza: Note to Iran — holy sites should be off-limit in war Back to video

Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy sites in the Old City have been closed to worshippers due to the danger of Iranian missile attacks. Religious gatherings have been limited to fifty people. On Palm Sunday morning, the Patriarch and Custos, who would normally lead an immense procession and congregation, set out toward the Holy Sepulchre in a group of less than a half-dozen. They were barred nevertheless.

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Denunciations quickly followed the world over, including from the president of France, the prime minister of Italy and the American ambassador to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hastily “instructed the relevant authorities that the Latin Patriarch be granted full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”

“As soon as I learned about the incident with Cardinal Pizzaballa, I instructed the authorities to enable the Patriarch to hold services as he wishes,” Netanyahu said. An agreement was worked out on Monday with the police for the remainder of the Holy Week services.

Two points should be made, the first regarding Iran and the second Israel.

Iran should observe the custom that in war holy places should not be targeted. Moreover, extreme care should be taken to prevent any collateral damage. No matter what the dispute may be between warring parties, holy places are, in a certain sense, beyond the sovereignty of their respective governments and should be treated as special noncombatants. During the immense destruction of the Second World War, only a few of Europe’s great houses of worship were damaged.

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In July 2025, after “stray ammunition” hit a Catholic church in Gaza, killing three civilians, Netanyahu apologized and the Israeli foreign ministry stated that Israel “never targets churches or religious sites and regrets any harm to a religious site or uninvolved civilians.”

In the current war, the Old City of Jerusalem, holy to the three Abrahamic faiths and precious to the common patrimony of humanity, must be entirely off-limits. If the Iranian regime had the slightest authentic piety, it would observe that — not least to avoid any collateral damage to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque. Current security protocols are in place, in part, because shrapnel from an Iranian missile landed not far from the Holy Sepulchre.

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A second point relates to a longstanding problem in Israel which may be getting worse. Many years ago, the Israeli ambassador to Canada invited me to discuss Catholic-Jewish relations generally and concrete practical issues in Israel. I raised the common complaint that security checkpoints in the West Bank impeded the movement of Christians, including visiting the holy places in Jerusalem, even during Holy Week. At the time the Patriarch himself was Jordanian — and his predecessor was a Palestinian — so their encounters with Israeli security officials were more frequent and more unpleasant.

The ambassador sighed, acknowledging that the complaint had been heard for years, raised even at the highest levels, including when senior Israeli officials visited the Vatican. The president, the prime minister, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, would all give assurances that security measures were not to be abused to harass or impede religious practice. They would repeat the same to their own senior officials. Yet on the ground, the local police or checkpoint officers might do precisely that, limiting liberties, denying rights, increasing friction and giving offence.

That is likely what happened here, though with global repercussions, given the prominence of the personages, the site and the occasion. Had it happened to a parish priest prevented from reaching his congregation, no one would have heard about it.

Violence against Christians in the West Bank has grown in recent years, without official sanction, of course, but the damage is still real. The presence in the Israeli cabinet of senior ministers who are openly hostile to the Palestinian presence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, including Christians, gives encouragement at the local level to those who would harass, impede or terrorize.

The remedial actions on Palm Sunday from the Israeli president and prime minister were necessary and proper. Yet their words need to be more widely honoured in practice when the world isn’t watching.

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