ISTANBUL

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee criticized Israeli police for blocking the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, calling the move an "unfortunate overreach already having major repercussions around the world."

Israeli police prevented Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and three priests from entering the church to offer a blessing on Sunday, the first time in centuries that church leaders were barred from marking Palm Sunday at one of Christianity's holiest sites.

On the US social media platform X, Huckabee acknowledged that Israeli authorities had restricted mass gatherings across Jerusalem's Old City to 50 people or fewer due to “security concerns” linked to Iranian retaliatory strikes but added that the four clergy members were well within that limit.

Huckabee, who served as a Baptist minister for over a decade, said churches, synagogues, and mosques across Jerusalem had been operating under the 50-person restriction without issue. Barring the patriarch from a private ceremony, he said, was "difficult to understand or justify."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office claimed Iranian strikes had targeted "holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles" and said it “has temporarily asked worshippers from all faiths not to worship at the holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City to protect them.”

Israel's security services are working on a plan to allow church leaders to worship at the site in the coming days, given the significance of Holy Week leading up to Easter, the office said.

As of last Friday, Israeli authorities continue to bar Muslims from Friday prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest mosque in Islam, for the fourth consecutive week, keeping the site closed since late February under emergency measures linked to the war with Iran.