AMMAN: It is a rare thing — a success story in Jerusalem — and it has been achieved through an unusual combination of factors, both political and economic, and the intervention of a Christian leader.
The success story being celebrated is the announcement that Israel is to backtrack on plans for a draft law and suspend attempts to seize bank accounts for churches. But what led to this extraordinary event?
On Tuesday — following three days of protest — Israel backtracked from tax plans and draft property legislation.
The city’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by Christians as the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, closed for three days in protest, reopened the following day.
Church leaders had gambled and taken the rare decision to close the ancient holy site, a favorite among tourists and pilgrims as a protest.
With the busy Easter holiday approaching, extra pressure was placed on Israel to re-evaluate and suspend the moves.
After a statement on Tuesday from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian clergy agreed that the church would reopen on Wednesday morning.
Hanan Ashrawi, PLO executive committee member, believes that the battle between the Churches and Israel was forced on the churches.
“Both US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have directly contributed to such an assault on the heart of Christianity in the place where it was born.
“Their illegal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy to the occupied city have rendered them complicit in such an outrageous move.”
The Church, wanting to fight to show its credentials as an authentic part of the Palestinian social fiber, had little choice but to take a strong stand against Israel’s actions.
The rare decision by the leaders of three churches — Orthodox, Catholic and Armenians — to shut the church was only taken in despair at the chances of reaching an agreement with the Israelis.
The bank seizure plan aimed to extract about $150 million (SR562.5 million) of what the Jerusalem municipality considers back taxes.
The Church cited an agreement signed in the nineteenth century, which has been honored by Turks, Britain and the Jordanians, which stipulates how church properties and endowments should be dealt with by ruling powers.
Botrus Mansour, general director of the Baptist School in Nazareth, told Arab News that the Church leaders took a risk in their decision to shut the church doors.
Last year 33,000 students of Christian schools went on strike because of lack of public funds — even so that did not change anything.
But not so this time around — images of the closed Church of Holy Sepulchre that were beamed around the world proved too powerful.
The closure of one of the most important churches in Christianity also meant that the three million tourists who visit Israel and Jerusalem each year would not get the chance to see inside the church.
A joint decision by Church leaders is rare. Differences among Christians in Jerusalem date back centuries. When the Muslim Caliph Omar came to the city he gave the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the respected Nusseibeh Muslim family.
But perhaps the most important reason why the church leaders succeeded in securing an agreement was due to problems faced by Theophilus III, the head of the Orthodox Church.
Khaled Abu Arafeh, a former Palestinian minister of Jerusalem affairs during the short-lived Ismael Haniyeh government in 2007, told Arab News that the Orthodox patriarch wanted to improve his image among Palestinians. Palestinian Christians had called for his resignation over property deals made with Israelis.
“Theophilus III wanted to clean up his record with Palestinians, and so he incited the leaders of the other Churches to make the drastic move.
“Palestinian Christians accuse the Greek Orthodox church leader of selling church property to the Israelis.
“Mansour agrees with Abu Arafeh that the internal problems of the Orthodox Church played a big role in his lead role in taking the drastic decision to close Christianity’s most holy places.”
But Mansour believes that in the end the deciding factor was the sight of people praying outside the church.
“When two billion Christians around the world saw the image caused by Israel’s decision, the Netanyahu government had little recourse but to back away,” he told Arab News.
A Jerusalem success story: How Christian churches succeeded where politician failed
A Jerusalem success story: How Christian churches succeeded where politician failed
Sudan drone attack on Darfur market kills 10: rescuers
- According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, more than 50,000 civilians have fled the region since the end of October
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: A drone attack on a busy market in Sudan’s North Darfur state killed 10 people over the weekend, first responders said on Sunday, without saying who was responsible.
The attack comes as fighting intensified elsewhere in the country, leading aid workers to be evacuated on Sunday from Kadugli, a besieged, famine-hit city in the south.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a conflict which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The North Darfur Emergency Rooms Council, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan, said a drone strike hit Al-Harra market in the RSF-controlled town of Malha on Saturday.
The attack killed 10 people, it said.
The council did not identify who carried out the attack, which it said had also sparked “fire in shops and caused extensive material damage.”
There was no immediate comment from either the Sudanese army or the RSF.
The war’s current focal point is now South Kordofan and clashes have escalated in Kadugli, the state capital, where a drone attack last week killed eight people as they attempted to flee the army-controlled city.
A source from a humanitarian organization operating in Kadugli told AFP on Sunday that humanitarian groups had “evacuated all their workers” from the city because of the security conditions.
The evacuation followed the United Nations’ decision to relocate its logistics hub from Kadugli, the source said on condition of anonymity, without specifying where the staff had gone.
- Measles outbreak -
Kadugli and nearby Dilling have been besieged by paramilitary forces since the war erupted.
Last week, the RSF claimed control of the Brno area, a key defensive line on the road between Kadugli and Dilling.
After dislodging the army in October from the western city of El-Fasher — its last stronghold in the Darfur region — the RSF has shifted its focus to resource-rich Kordofan, a strategic crossroads linking army-held northern and eastern territories with RSF-held Darfur in the west.
Like Darfur, Kordofan is home to numerous non-Sudanese Arab ethnic groups. Much of the violence that followed the fall of El-Fasher was reportedly ethnically targeted.
Communications in Kordofan have been cut, and the United Nations declared a famine in Kadugli last month.
According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, more than 50,000 civilians have fled the region since the end of October.
Residents have been forced to forage for food in nearby forests, according to accounts gathered by AFP.
The conflict has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, east and center while the RSF dominates all five state capitals in Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.
Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Sunday that measles was spreading in three of the four states in Darfur, a vast region covering much of western Sudan.
“A preventable measles outbreak is spreading across Central, South and West Darfur,” the organization said in a statement.
“Since September 2025, MSF teams have treated more than 1,300 cases. Delays in vaccine transport, approvals and coordination, by authorities and key partners are leaving children unprotected.”
