As Christians around the world gather to celebrate Easter, a time of renewal, hope, and resurrection, in Palestine, the holy season is marked by a stark contrast of faith and hardship.

Like Christmas, and Ramadan, Palestinians, will not be celebrating Easter the way the rest of the world will. For the past 16 months, Palestinians, have not been able to express their faith in a joyful way, just as it is intended.

In the heart of the Holy Land, where the message of Easter first rang out two millennia ago, Christian Palestinians are struggling to even access their sacred sites. In Jerusalem, Israeli checkpoints and increasingly restrictive measures have made it nearly impossible for many West Bank Christians to attend Easter services at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Worshippers from the West Bank and even Jerusalem must cross many Israeli checkpoints while being harassed by soldiers and settlers within the old city of Jerusalem. Often denied access without explanation Palestinians are having their faith tested not by doubt, but by brutal, racist occupation.

For many Palestinian Christians, this spiritual journey is an act of resistance, an insistence on their right not just to worship, but to exist with dignity in the land of their ancestors.

In Gaza, where the devastation of genocide has left thousands murdered, and millions displaced, the remnants of the Christian community face Easter under the shadow of rubble and grief. Despite churches having been damaged and destroyed, families displaced, and lives lost, yet, Gazans Muslim and Christian alike, continue to stand together to find a little hope in their faith.

This is the resilience of Palestine. In a land burdened by military settler colonial occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, its people continue to find life, meaning, and even celebration amid the suffering. Easter here is not just a commemoration of resurrection, it is a declaration that even under oppression hope endures.

Palestinian Christians, although shrinking in number due to forced displacement and emigration due to the Israeli occupation and increasing hardship happening in the occupied Palestinian territory, remain rooted in this land. Their presence is not merely symbolic; it is essential to the identity of Palestine. Despite attempts by the occupying forces to erase or marginalize them, they remain, and will continue to be steadfast, and faithful.

This Easter, as the world looks toward Jerusalem, it must remember the Palestinian people who are being denied basic rights, such as freedom of movement, and freedom of worship. Acknowledging the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank the world must speak out. All prayers should be a call for justice and peace and ending this siege with its mass killing of innocent people. Let it be a prayer for the light of hope.

Palestine this Easter is not free, but it witnesses its strength. In every candle lit under occupation, in every prayer said under siege, a deeper truth shines through: love, justice, and liberation are not just sacred ideas. They are lived, struggled for, and kept alive, even under the rubble.

And as Kairos Palestine wrote in their Easter Appeal: “This Easter, let us commit to ensuring that it is not the last Easter with a vibrant Palestinian Christian presence.”

CHRIST IS RISEN… HE IS RISEN INDEED.

Catholics for Justice and Peace in the Holy Land