Sanctity Under Siege: The Case for Global Laws Protecting Civilians on Religious Holidays from Acts of War

When Sacred Days Become Targets

On April 13, 2025—Palm Sunday in the Christian calendar—two separate attacks rocked global headlines. In Ukraine, Russian missile strikes devastated the city of Sumy. Simultaneously, in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes hit a church compound where civilians were reportedly taking shelter.

Both incidents occurred on one of Christianity’s most significant religious observances, commemorating Jesus Christ’s entry into Jerusalem—a symbol of peace and humility.

These attacks raise profound legal, ethical, and humanitarian concerns. In particular, they highlight a gap in international legal protections for religious observance in times of war. As global conflict increasingly ignores the moral boundaries once respected even in wartime, the legal industry must consider how international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights frameworks can evolve to prevent warfare on religious holidays. This article explores existing protections, analyzes their limitations, and makes the case for an international legal standard that classifies such acts as crimes against humanity.

The Legal Framework: What Existing Law Protects

Under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, civilians, places of worship, and cultural property are protected during armed conflict. Specifically:

• Article 52 of Additional Protocol I (1977) prohibits attacks on civilian objects.
• Article 53 of the same protocol prohibits attacks on cultural objects and places of worship.
• The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) identifies war crimes and crimes against humanity, including intentional attacks against civilian populations and persecution based on religion.

Furthermore, The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) obliges parties to avoid targeting cultural and religious sites.

However, none of these treaties or conventions explicitly forbid attacks timed to coincide with religious holidays. The symbolism, emotional trauma, and broader implications of violence on sacred days remain largely unaddressed in current international law.

The Limits of Current Law: A Legal Gray Zone

While it is theoretically possible to prosecute attacks on religious holidays under existing statutes—as violations of laws protecting civilians or places of worship—there is no specific legal codification recognizing the intensified psychological and cultural harm inflicted when violence occurs during holy observances.

Legal gray areas include:

• Intent and Timing: Proving that an attack was purposefully timed to coincide with a religious holiday is difficult under current evidentiary standards.
• Symbolic Harm: International law traditionally focuses on physical harm, but attacks on holy days cause disproportionate emotional and cultural trauma that may go unaddressed in conventional war crimes prosecutions.
• Lack of Specificity: The lack of specific legal language allows states to claim operational necessity or deny targeting civilian sanctity.

This legal ambiguity allows impunity to thrive, particularly for state actors with significant political leverage in international forums.

Palm Sunday 2025: A Case Study in Legal Inadequacy

The Palm Sunday attacks in both Sumy and Gaza offer case studies in how modern conflict disregards symbolic, religious, and humanitarian norms:

• Sumy, Ukraine: Russian missiles struck civilian infrastructure in a majority-Christian city during a religious celebration. While the legality of Russia’s broader military campaign is under international scrutiny, this specific attack underscores the symbolic aggression embedded in timing.
• Gaza Strip: Reports indicate that the church compound struck by Israeli forces was sheltering civilians. Israel claims it was targeting militants, but the choice of target and timing raises questions about proportionality and respect for religious sanctity.

In both cases, the damage extended beyond the physical—ripping apart moments of peace, reflection, and community. The legal tools to address these deeper harms are not yet strong enough.

Toward a Legal Reform: Codifying Protections for Holy Days

To remedy these gaps, the international legal community should pursue the following steps:

1. Adopt an International Convention on Religious Holiday Ceasefires

Modeled after humanitarian ceasefires for medical evacuations or food deliveries, this treaty would require combatants to halt offensive operations during major religious observances recognized by the United Nations (e.g., Easter, Ramadan, Yom Kippur, Diwali).

2. Amend the Rome Statute

The Rome Statute could be amended to include “intentional acts of war carried out during religious holidays with the knowledge of symbolic harm” as a potential crime against humanity or a form of persecution.

3. Establish Evidentiary Guidelines

New protocols should guide international courts and tribunals in evaluating intent, timing, and psychological harm in these cases, ensuring that prosecutions reflect the full scope of impact.

4. Create a Monitoring Body

A specialized observatory within the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations could monitor and report violations of religious sanctity in conflict zones, similar to current mechanisms for monitoring attacks on journalists or healthcare workers.

Moral Imperative Meets Legal Obligation

The modern legal order, particularly post-World War II, is built on the premise that certain actions—genocide, torture, systematic persecution—are never permissible. Attacks timed to undermine the sanctity of faith, peace, and worship must now be included in that category.

The legal profession must lead in shaping the next evolution of humanitarian law. Law firms, academic institutions, international NGOs, and bar associations can all play a role by:

• Drafting proposed language for a treaty or Rome Statute amendment;
• Advocating within multilateral forums such as the UN Human Rights Council;
• Supporting litigation in international courts to set precedent on symbolic harm.

Conclusion: A Call for Legal Action to Protect

As war becomes increasingly asymmetrical and information warfare seeks to weaponize every facet of public life—including religion—the international legal system must rise to meet the challenge. Palm Sunday 2025 should be remembered not only for its tragedies but as a turning point in how the global legal community views the intersection of faith, warfare, and justice.

To fail in creating explicit legal protections for religious observance in times of war is to concede that nothing—not even the sacred—is safe from the machinery of conflict.