AS PILGRIMS from around the world gathered at the site of the Crucifixion, church leaders protested that Israel had prevented thousands of the Holy Land’s Christians from attending Easter celebrations.

Latin Patriarchate officials said that many Palestinian Christians who applied for security passes were denied them by Israeli military authorities who control passage into Jerusalem from West Bank towns, especially Bethlehem.

Bethlehem, the Palestinian city with the largest Christian population, is now sealed off from Israel by a 30ft (9m) Israeli wall completed just before Christmas.

Its northern neighbour, Ramallah, is also enclosed by a stretch of the 450-mile separation barrier that Israel is building to halt the flow of suicide bombers and gunmen who have killed more than 1,000 Israelis during five years of violence.

The problem was compounded yesterday because the Roman Catholic Easter Sunday and Orthodox Palm Sunday fell on the same day, both congregations mingling in a colourful riot of brown-robed monks, black-hatted Orthodox priests, the purple-clad Latin Patriarch and guards wearing Turkish fezes and cutlasses.

An official in Jerusalem said he had received only 3,000 of the 7,000 security passes he sought for last week’s Catholic Palm Sunday, and a small number of those he sought for Easter weekend services.

“We are very disappointed,” one official said. “We spent hours and hours making telephone calls to all our parishes and priests to draw up the list. We were very co-operative, and at the end of the day they didn’t give us the permits.”

Israeli officials cite security concerns, pointing out that despite Bethlehem’s international image as a Christian town, in 2004 half of all Israeli fatalities were caused by suicide bombers originating there.

Lieutenant Adam Avidan, of Israel’s Civil Administration in the occupied West Bank, said it had a quota of 30,000 permits for the Easter holiday period, to cover all denominations. “Of course we can’t let everyone go into Israel,” he said. “Before someone gets a permit we do security checks and we have to get clearance from the Israeli Defence Forces. Most of the requests are positive, as far as I know everything is going well .”

George, 37, a Catholic tour guide in Bethlehem, was turned back when he tried to pass into Jerusalem with his papers marked Christian. “Some of my friends at the checkpoint had the papers, but were refused permission because they brought their children and the Israelis demanded to see their birth certificates.”

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