Ankur Desai

So for Samantha and I, it felt like something very important to do right now.

But yeah, it feels different.

Our families definitely felt more trepidation about it.

I'm standing here in what is normally, especially during Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, one of the busiest parts of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Very, very unlike any time that I've seen here before in the Old City.

Just looking to my left, I see the gateway which leads into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

That's closed.

There are two guards who are stopping people from going in there.

This is a very, very different sense of what...

the city normally represents for Christians around the world.

Three weeks ago, a fragment from an Iranian missile made impact on the edge of the old city, just a few hundred metres from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Al-Aqsa and the Western Wall, all closed for fear of mass casualties, where a missile to strike during mass religious gatherings.

So, on Palm Sunday, the church of Bethpage up on the Mount of Olives held a mass for local Christians.

The bejoyous procession with thousands of worshippers from near and far holding palms that normally sets off from there was cancelled.

The destination is traditionally the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

At the same time that mass was being held in Bethpage, the Latin patriarch Cardinal Pier Battista Pizzaballa was denied entry to Jerusalem's most revered church by Israeli police.

The incident sparked an international outcry.

The break in centuries-old tradition was also felt deeply by local Christians like Issa.

It makes me feel sad, first, as a patriarch, because he is a leader of the head church of Jerusalem.

This is like his house.

It's like my house, and also this is his house.