A video of an attack on a French Catholic nun and archeological researcher in Jerusalem has caused widespread revulsion and been denounced as a “shameful act” by Israel’s foreign ministry.
In the video, a man runs up behind the nun as she walks down a street and pushes her over with force, so that the victim comes close to hitting her head on a block of stone. After walking away a few paces, the attacker, who appears to be Jewish, returns to kick the nun as she lies on the ground and only stops when a passerby intervenes.
The nun’s face was grazed but she was not reported to be seriously injured. The Israeli police said they had arrested a 36-year-old man, and that the force would “continue to act with a heavy hand and zero tolerance in order to preserve and maintain the proper and safe fabric of life for all ethnicities and religions in the city of Jerusalem”.
The attack took place on Mount Zion, near the site revered by Jewish people as King David’s tomb, and the Cenacle, traditionally held by Christians to be the site of the last supper.
The French consulate strongly condemned the attack and said on X: “France calls for the perpetrator of the aggression to be brought to justice for this act and for justice to be served.”
The director of the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research in Jerusalem, Father Olivier Poquillon, said the nun was a researcher at the school, and added that he expected a firm response from the authorities.
“This is not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of rising hostility toward the Christian community and its symbols,” the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said, noting the victim was a “cherished academic partner in uncovering this land’s heritage”.
“An attack on its scholars is an attack on the global scientific community,” the university said in a statement quoted by the Jerusalem Post.
Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying the attack was a “shameful act [that] stands in direct contradiction to the values of respect, coexistence, and religious freedom upon which Israel is founded and to which it remains deeply committed”.
The ruling coalition government has fostered the rise of Israeli religious nationalism. Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank, some of the oldest in the world, have faced increasing harassment from Israeli settlers over the past few years. But the government has been embarrassed by a rise in hostility towards Christian clerics in Jerusalem and incidents that have gone viral online, at a time when Israel’s popularity in the west is in marked decline.
Last month, an Israeli soldier was filmed vandalising a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer in southern Lebanon. He and another soldier, who filmed the attack, were jailed for 30 days and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was “stunned and saddened” by the incident.
The Religious Freedom Data Centre (RFDC), a network of Israeli volunteers, recorded 31 incidents of harassment of Christians in the first three months of this year. Most of the incidents involve spitting or defacing church property, and the violent attack this week is highly unusual.
However, the RFDC said their figures seriously understate the extent of the problem, as Orthodox congregations tend not to report incidents. The group recounted a monastery in Mea Shearim telling them there had been “no significant incidents” but adding: “The truth is, we hardly left the house. At times, when we did go out, children spat and cursed the name of the Lord Jesus. I cannot tell you how many times this occurred.”
