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The Is­raeli po­lice pre­vent­ed Catholic lead­ers from en­ter­ing the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre to cel­e­brate Mass on the Chris­t­ian hol­i­day of Palm Sun­day for the first time in cen­turies, the Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate said Sun­day.

Jerusalem’s ma­jor holy sites are closed be­cause of the on­go­ing Iran war, in­clud­ing the church, as the city has come un­der fre­quent fire from Iran­ian mis­siles.

The Catholic Church called the po­lice de­ci­sion “a man­i­fest­ly un­rea­son­able and gross­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate mea­sure.” It pre­vent­ed two of the church’s top re­li­gious lead­ers, in­clud­ing Car­di­nal Pier­bat­tista Piz­z­a­bal­la and the head of the Cus­tos in the Holy Land, from cel­e­brat­ing Palm Sun­day at the place where Chris­tians be­lieve Je­sus was cru­ci­fied.