Attack on French nun in Jerusalem draws widespread condemnation | Israel
Video showing the attack on a French Catholic nun and archaeological researcher in Jerusalem sparked widespread outrage and was condemned by Israel’s foreign ministry as a “shameful act”.
In the video, a man runs after a nun walking down the street and forcefully pushes her, so the victim nearly hits her head on a block of stone. The attacker, who appeared to be a Jew, walked a few steps away, then turned back and kicked the nun lying on the ground, and only stopped when a passerby intervened.
The nun’s face was scratched, but she was not reported to be seriously injured. Israeli police said they arrested a 36-year-old man and that the police “will continue to act with a harsh attitude and zero tolerance in order to protect and maintain the fabric of proper and safe 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 the tomb of King David, and on the Cenacle, traditionally considered by Christians to be the site of the last supper.
The French consulate strongly condemned the attack and in X he said: “France calls for the perpetrator of the attack to be brought to justice for this action and for justice to be served.”
Father Olivier Poquillon, director of the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, said the nun was a researcher at the school and He added that he was waiting A harsh response from the authorities.
“This is not an isolated incident, but part of the growing hostility towards the Christian community and its symbols,” the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said, noting that the victim was “a valuable academic partner in uncovering the legacy of this land.”
“An attack on academics is an attack on the global scientific community,” the university said in a statement. Quote from Jerusalem Post.
Israeli foreign ministry published a statement He said the attack was a “shameful act” [that] “It directly contradicts the values of respect, coexistence, and religious freedom on which Israel was founded and to which it remains deeply committed.”
The ruling coalition government encouraged the rise of Israeli religious nationalism. Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank, one of the oldest communities in the world, have faced increasing harassment from Israeli settlers in the past few years. But the government is embarrassed by the rise in hostility towards Christian clergy in Jerusalem and the incidents that have gone viral on the Internet, at a time when Israel’s popularity in the West is declining markedly.
Last month, an Israeli soldier was filmed damaging a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon with a sledgehammer. He and another soldier who filmed the attack were sentenced to 30 days in prison, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “shocked and saddened” by the incident.
Religious Freedom Data Center RFDC, a network of Israeli volunteers, recorded 31 cases of harassment against Christians in the first three months of this year. Most incidents involve spitting on or defacing church property, and this week’s violent attack is highly unusual.
But the RFDC said its figures seriously underestimated the extent of the problem because Orthodox congregations tended not to report incidents. The group said they were told at a monastery in Mea Shearim that there had been “no major incident”, but added: “The truth is that we hardly ever left the house. Sometimes when we went out the children were spitting and cursing the name of the Lord Jesus. I can’t tell you how many times this happened.”
