TEL AVIV – Israel on Thursday indicted a Jewish man over a violent attack on a nun near Jerusalem’s Old City last week, the latest in a string of high-profile incidents targeting Christians and religious symbols.
The indictment identified the man as Yona Schreiber, 36, from the Israeli-occupied West Bank settlement of Peduel. It comes after a video of the assault received wide condemnation from foreign and Christian leaders.
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Schreiber was arrested last week, and Israel's attorney general recommended extending his detention for the duration of the case. Schreiber’s lawyer refused to speak to an Associated Press journalist at the court.
According to the indictment, Schreiber attacked a woman in Jerusalem, just outside of the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, because she was wearing a habit that identified her as a Catholic nun. He pushed her and then kicked her while she was lying on the ground, and also attacked a passerby who attempted to halt his attack, the indictment said.
Schreiber is being charged with simple assault, and assault motivated by religious hostility.
Olivier Poquillon, the director of the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, said that the nun was a researcher at the school. He called the attack an “act of sectarian violence” in an X post.
Religious groups have documented a rise in acts of harassment and violence against Christian pilgrims and clergy as well as Palestinian Christian residents, including assaults and spitting, often by extremist ultra-Orthodox Jews.
The arrest comes as Israeli treatment of religious minorities is under scrutiny, weeks after police limited access for holiday worship in Jerusalem’s holiest sites because of security concerns during the Iran war.
Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa was prohibited from holding a private Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, the first time in centuries Catholic leaders have been prevented from observing Palm Sunday at the church. After the uproar, Jerusalem police eventually worked out a compromise for a limited Easter Mass at the church.
Israel also drew international criticism after a soldier photographed himself bludgeoning a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross with an ax in southern Lebanon. Israeli leaders later disavowed the incident and said that he would be reprimanded, and assisted local residents in replacing the statue.
The Israeli military also opened an investigation into a soldier photographed shoving a cigarette into the mouth of the statue of the Virgin Mary, which was apparently photographed several weeks ago. The military said that it views the incident with “utmost severity.” And there have been questions and concern about Israeli soldiers bulldozing parts of a Catholic convent in southern Lebanon.
Last month, Israel’s Foreign Ministry appointed former Ambassador George Deek to be the special envoy to the Christian world, in response to the incidents. Deek previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan and was Israel’s first Arab Christian ambassador.
Deek condemned the soldier filmed smoking a cigarette with a statue of the Virgin Mary, and stressed that Israel “is committed to preserving religious freedom and the dignity of all religions.”
Israel’s founding declaration includes safeguarding freedom of religion and all holy places, and it portrays itself as an oasis of religious tolerance in a volatile region.
But some church authorities and monitoring groups have lamented a recent increase in anti-Christian sentiment and harassment. The issue is particularly pronounced in Jerusalem’s Old City, a densely populated area with narrow alleyways of ancient stones, which houses holy sites for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Wadie Abunassar, the coordinator of the Holy Land Christian Forum, last week called attacks targeting Christians a growing phenomenon. He attributed the quick response to the attack on the nun to the fact that it was caught on video.
He said that he felt “great anger on the system and great sadness, because I feel that this will not end anytime soon.” One of the problems, he said, was insufficient deterrence against such violence.
“Many times in such cases there are no arrests and if there are arrests, sometimes after one or two days, (suspects) are released,” he added. “In some cases, the police do not recommend the prosecution to file charges or to indict them. And in some cases, when there is indictment, the indictment is mild.”
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Sam Metz contributed to this report from Ramallah, West Bank.