Israeli radicals again invade Gethsemane Dependency

On 13-14 November 2016, settlers-invaders of St John Hostel, members of the Ateret Cohanim organization, entered a room that does not belong to the hostel they have been occupying, but to the building complex of the Gethsemane Dependency, reports the website of the Jerusalem Patriarchate.

As reported by the Secretariat-General of the Patriarchate, the extremists, misinterpreting and distorting a temporary agreement signed between the Patriarchate’s legal consultants and their own legal consultants, entered a room that does not belong to the hostel and set to work there by force and arbitrarily, whilst preventing the Patriarchate’s workman to work as agreed.

Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem went to the site on Monday and other Hagiotaphite Fathers strongly protested against the Hostel’s settlers, whilst also calling the Israeli Police.

Faced with the settlers’ denial to stop working, the Police ordered suspension of the works until the agreement be made clear.

When, on Monday evening, the Legal Consultants of the two sides failed to reach an agreement, His Beatitude asked for the Police’s vigilance in terms of complying with the suspension order, whilst instructing the Patriarchate’s consultants to seek justice in the courts towards preventing the settlers’ aim to change the pilgrimage status that includes the Dependency of Gethsemane before finally moving to the Court of the Church of the Resurrection.
As reported earlier, the Israeli right-wing radicals destroyed a room in the Gethsemane Dependency.