Senior US church leaders have expressed deep concern over the current situation in the Old City of Jerusalem´s Old City of Hebron.
In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they stressed their support for strengthening the resilience of the Christian component of Jerusalem´s identity and confronting the settlement organization Ateret Cohanim, which seeks to seize Christian properties in the holy city . The heads of the churches also stressed that the work of this settlement does not only concern the Christians of the Holy Land, but is a cause of global Christian concern, because it threatens access to the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. They pointed out that the whole world churches will suffer from the loss of the properties of the Gate of Hebron, and called for supporting the orientation of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, to protect the properties of the Gate of Hebron, and to grant a special status to the Christian Quarter in the Old City, in order to preserve the Christian component of the identity of the city of Jerusalem, and protection from those Who undermine religious harmony in the holy city . It is noteworthy that the "Ateret Cohanim", claims to buy real estate, in the historic Hebron area of ​​occupied Jerusalem. Christian circles accused Orthodox church officials of leaking these properties to settler organizations in exchange for money. On 12 June last year, the Israeli court rejected the petition of the Orthodox Church and approved the takeover of three archaeological buildings in the Old City by Ateret Cohanim after 14 years of disagreement . The three archaeological buildings in the Bab Al-Khalil area are the 4-storey Petra Hotel and the Imperial Hotel. Occupied.
