Israeli Troops Block UN Envoy from Easter Service

The incident, following two days of violence at a separate holy site known as a flashpoint, underscored rising tensions in the politically charged city ahead of Pope Francis's Holy Land visit next month.
 
The Zionist entity dismissed the U.N. complaint, calling it an attempt to inflate a "micro-incident" and saying police at the barricade keep people back as a crowd-control measure.
 
Robert Serry, the United Nation's peace envoy to the Middle East, said in a statement that Zionist security officers had stopped a group of Palestinian worshippers and diplomats in a procession near the church, "claiming they had orders to that effect".
 
Serry added in separate remarks to Reuters he had waited with Italian, Norwegian and Dutch diplomats for up to a half hour, crushed by a crowd against a barricade, while Zionist officers ignored his appeals to speak with a superior.
 
"It became really dangerous because there was a big crowd and I was pushed against a metal fence the police put up there, the crowd tried to push really hard," Serry said, adding they might have been trampled had police not finally let them pass.
 
"I don't understand why this happened," he added. "I'm not saying I felt my life was in imminent danger, but this wasn't something you associate with a peaceful procession for Easter."
 
Charging "unacceptable behavior from the Israeli security authorities," Serry demanded in his statement that all parties "respect the right of religious freedom."
 
A Zionist Foreign Ministry spokesman denied Serry's charges and accused him of displaying "a serious problem of judgment".
 
Pope Francis plans to visit Jerusalem and holy sites in the occupied West Bank such as Bethlehem when he makes his first Holy Land sojourn as pontiff late in May.