Jerusalem on edge amid religious celebrations

At the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of the holiest sites for Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem, a steady flow of tourists and devout believers enter through the wooden gate of the church. "Being here at Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, is just a special time and it feels really special to be around," says Kelly Hoffman, a visitor from California.

After two years of COVID-19 restrictions, the narrow alleys of the Old City in east Jerusalem are bustling again with foreign and local visitors for the season. "Once you enter the Old City, you feel the atmosphere of the feasts," says Rula Ghazawi, a Palestinian Christian who works in the Old City. "But the atmosphere is also sad, because of the situation. And there is [the war] in Ukraine. We feel with the refugees, the people who are killed."

This weekend, an unusual convergence of festivities of the three major religions takes place: the week-long Jewish Passover will begin, eastern and western Christians celebrate their respective Easter over two weekends, and Muslims enter their third week of Ramadan.

But renewed tensions between Palestinians and Israelis threaten to overshadow the festive spirit of the season. On Friday morning, clashes in the Old City have already led to around 150 people being injured.

And the war in Ukraine is also weighing on everyone's mind. The hopes of small shopkeepers that business would pick have been dampened by the fact that tourists aren't spending much this year. "After Covid, we had expected more visitors, now there is the war on Ukraine, it all affects the situation", shop owner Mohammed Salhab told DW. "As for the political tensions - we Palestinians have to live with it and accept it. No, it is not the nicest atmosphere."

Christians will mark Good Friday with processions making their way through the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross.

At sunset, maintaining an old daily tradition in Ramadan, the sound of the Ramadan cannon punctuates the skies over east Jerusalem. Its friendly fire marks the moment of breaking of the fast, which is when Muslims can have their Iftar meal.

And this Friday around the same time, Jewish Israelis will come together for Seder night - to tell the story of the Jewish people's exodus from Egypt and their journey from slavery to freedom.

"The main thing is having the Seder at night, to commemorate that we left Egypt, the Jewish people left Egypt", rabbi Seth Clyman who lives in Jerusalem, told DW. "So, at the Seder, we really want to sit together as family. Because the job of the father, or the grandfather, is to convey to the generations what happens to us."

Deadly series of terror attacks

As Friday morning already saw fresh unrest, Israelis are still coming to terms with a recent series of deadly terror attacks which took the lives of 12 Israelis and two Ukrainian nationals in the past three weeks.

The first two attacks happened in Beer Sheva and Hadera in March, both carried out by Arab-Israeli citizens aligned with the so-called Islamic State. A Palestinian from the West Bank shot five people in the city of Bnei Brak on March 29. And a mass shooting by a Palestinian gunman in a busy bar in central Tel Aviv last Thursday took the lives of three young Israelis.

Israeli security officials said the attacks appear to be "lone wolf attacks" and not planned by Palestinian armed groups. Leaders of the Arab-Palestinian community in Israel and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attacks.

For his part, Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, who has come under pressure because his government has lost its parliamentary majority, said on Sunday that "the state of Israel has gone on an offensive". There would be no constraints in the "war against terrorism."

Military response in the West Bank

Meanwhile, Palestinians have seen a rising death toll in the occupied West Bank. After the attacks in Israel, the Israeli military increased its raids and arrests mainly around the city of Jenin in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian media reported that six Palestinians were killed in the West Bank alone between Wednesday and Thursday.

Among them was a teenager who was shot dead allegedly after "hurling a molotov cocktail" at troops in the West Bank village of Husan, according to an army statement. And on Sunday, a Palestinian woman died after being shot by Israeli forces near a temporary checkpoint in the same village. The Israeli army said she did not heed calls to stop by firing warning shots in the air. The victim was unarmed.

Holy sites in focus

With the beginning of Passover, there are also concerns over calls by an extremist Jewish group encouraging people to practice the ancient ritual of sacrificing a lamb on the Temple Mount, known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. In past years, Israeli police have prevented the practice of such rituals and have confiscated lambs destined to be slaughtered.

Such an act would threaten the delicate status quo – the mutual respect that Muslims and Jews agree to hold toward one another's holy sites. After 1967, when Israel captured and later annexed east Jerusalem, an agreement was put in place with Jordan, the custodian of the holy site, to allow Jews to visit but not to pray or perform religious rituals on the compound which adjoins two holy sites.

The site of the Western Wall is Judaism's holiest place, and the Al Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site for Muslims.

Earlier this week, Palestinian militant group Hamas and other militant factions in Gaza issued a statement calling on Palestinians to come out in masses for this Friday's prayer, warning Israel of a violent response relating to the situation in the West Bank and at the Al Aqsa Mosque.