On Via Dolorosa, World's Pilgrims Gather By Souvenir Stalls

Miljkovic Milivoje, a Serbian iron worker, had been up since before dawn. Mid-morning yesterday, he was sitting on a low wall opposite the Sixth Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City. In his left hand was a walking stick and in his right a wooden crucifix he had bought earlier in his pilgrimage holiday after a long climb to the Greek Orthodox chapel on Mount Sinai in Egypt.

It was Mr Milivoje's second visit to Jerusalem; the first was a Christmas pilgrimage. "Now I have seen the complete circle, from birth to death. Can you feel the positive energy? It is everywhere."

He sat surrounded by 46 Serbs from his tour group, all holding up small, identical crucifixes. They were waiting for a Greek Orthodox bishop, who was due to pass. Every few moments, a crowd burst up the hill, chanting, running and praying. They forced onlookers against the walls as they rushed past bearing large, wooden crucifixes carried aloft through the Via Dolorosa to mark Good Friday, the anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ.

Before each wave of pilgrims, a handful of Israeli police and soldiers, their arms interlocked, tried to steady the crowds. A Palestinian shopkeeper stood on his doorstep, shouting in English, "One by one, one by one". And to those who dared ignore his instructions to clear the road, "What makes you think you're better than everybody else?"

These days the Via Dolorosa is paved with souvenir shops. Alongside the crosses and rosary beads on sale are baseball caps marked "Israel Army". T-shirts with messages such as "America don't worry, Israel is behind you" hang next to posters with pictures from the British Mandate era that read "Visit Palestine". One shop sold "family trees from Adam to Jesus". Tourists stopped for coffee at the Holy Rock Cafe.

The Old City was crowded with pilgrim tourists, partly because several of the largest Christian sects celebrate Holy Week and Easter Sunday on the same dates this year. The influx is partly due to the sense of greater security. After the eruption of the second intifada in 2000 and the wave of suicide bombings and Israeli military incursions into the occupied West Bank, tourists shied away. Now there are far fewer bombings.

But Israel maintains its security concerns. For the week-long Passover holiday the Israeli military declared a closure on the West Bank and Gaza, severely limiting the number of Palestinians allowed across checkpoints. Special permits were issued for Palestinian Christians - according to one UN report around 8,000 were given, although they were said to be scarce.

Shopkeepers in the Old City said tourist numbers were still low. Farange Nashashibi, a member of one of the oldest Palestinian familie s in Jerusalem and the owner of a souvenir shop, was particularly bitter. "Before there wasn't even room to breathe the streets were so crowded," he said. He blamed the conflict with Israel. "There should be peace. There is no need to fight. The Israelis need to change their minds about us."

Many of those walking through the Old City said they knew or cared little of the vexed politics of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Others said they were torn by their visit. Nessa O'Byrne-Healy, 64, an Irish woman resting inside a chapel at the Fifth Station of the Cross, said she had been moved by some of what she had seen but troubled by her visits to Nazareth, close to the vast West Bank barrier, and to Hebron, a Palestinian city in the West Bank which is divided by the presence of a few hundred Jewish settlers. "People have no idea what's going on. I don't find a great sense of holiness in this city."

The tourists were from across the world: Indians, Nigerians, Filipinos, Koreans, Russians, as well as Europeans and Americans. Several older pilgrims carried burial shrouds which they intended to anoint at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the focus for the crowds and the place where they believe Christ was crucified and his body laid out.

"They're preparing for death," said the Rev Canon Bill Broughton, an American walking through the Old City. "They make their peace with God and off they go. It's the ultimate sign of faith because you walk through death with hope."

Others in the crowds were among the growing number of foreign workers in Israel. "I'm lucky to come to this place," said Ivan Almeida, 31, an Indian Catholic from Mumbai. I'm lucky to come here." He has a technical machinist's diploma in India but his $1,000 (£510) monthly salary as a housekeeper in Tel Aviv is far more than he could earn at home.