Feature story
The lobbying week focused primarily on the situation in East Jerusalem while also addressing related challenges in other parts of the West Bank,” said Iskandar Majlaton, programme coordinator for the WCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.
The EU has long held that settlements are illegal under international law.
The delegation of accompaniers met with members of parliament, officials from the European External Action Service, and other key stakeholders to highlight urgent issues such as settlement expansion, settler violence, displacement of Palestinian communities, and protecting the status of Jerusalem as a city holy to the three monotheistic religions.
The Israeli government has acted to aggressively expand settlements throughout the West Bank, including in the E1 area of East Jerusalem and de facto annexation which is currently underway.
“The issue that resonated with most people was freedom of worship violations in Jerusalem,” said George Sahhar, advocacy officer for the WCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. “This is an issue where they can have a consensus, in comparison to other issues.”
Christians and Muslims in East Jerusalem face constant harassment and discrimination, greatly impeding their ability to move and worship freely especially during Holy Fire Saturday and the month of Ramadan.
In 2025, the Israeli government announced it had issued 6,000 permits to Palestinian Christians from the West Bank to visit Jerusalem during the Easter services. This is just a fraction of the approximately 50,000 Christians living in the West Bank. Christian leaders indicated only 4,000 were given.
In 2025, only 1,800 were allowed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This included 200 police. Prior to 2020, around 10,000 were permitted to enter.
The ecumenical accompaniers traveled to Brussels from Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden to hold individual meetings with their members of parliament.
“The enthusiasm demonstrated by the ecumenical accompaniers, and their passion when they told their eyewitness stories was highly persuasive,” said Sahhar. “We met also with representatives of Christian organizations and civil society in a roundtable briefing, and it turned out that one of the participants was a former ecumenical accompanier.”
Accompaniers also met with the legal advisor for the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, as well as the EU's policy department, and gave a briefing to the Brussels civil society and church-related organizations.
“It was a great opportunity to brief them about the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, and to call for an end to freedom of worship violations in Jerusalem and protect human rights,” said Sahhar.
