April 28, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 21, 1429

EREZ BORDER CROSSING (Gaza Strip): Some 500 Palestinian Christians were allowed to leave the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday to celebrate Easter in the West Bank, an Israeli army spokesman said.

“Approximately 500 Palestinian Christians were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip to go to the West Bank for Easter,” Major Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the military’s coordinator of activities in the territories said. The Palestinians left through the Erez crossing bound for the West Bank town of Bethlehem with special permits that will allow them to remain for a few days to celebrate Orthodox Easter.

Some 2,500 Palestinian Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox, live alongside 1.5 million Muslims in the impoverished coastal strip.—AFP