Israeli Man Charged with Religiously Motivated Assault on French Nun in Jerusalem

Israeli police detained a 36-year-old settler from the occupied West Bank after he pushed a French nun to the ground in Jerusalem on April 28 and kicked her while she lay on the street. A passerby stopped the attack, which was captured on video and showed the man wearing a Jewish kippah and ritual tassels.

Israel’s state attorney’s office charged the suspect with assault motivated by hostility toward a religious group.

The attack drew condemnation from Israeli government officials and from the governments of France, Spain, and Italy. 2 million residents, and 79 percent of them are Arabs. About 2,700 Christian clergy live in Israel, most of them non-citizens, according to the Rossing Center.

The Religious Freedom Data Center recorded 181 hostile incidents against Christians in 2025, up from 107 in 2024. Yiscah Harani, the center’s founder and director, said many cases go unreported and that most complaints filed with authorities receive no response. “If there is no enforcement, then it is a green light to do it again, a sort of passive encouragement,” she said.

A 2025 Rossing Center survey found that higher levels of religiosity among Jewish Israeli respondents correlated with greater discomfort toward Christianity and lower willingness to engage in learning or tolerance. Hana Bendcowsky, program director of the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations at the Rossing Center, said wartime priorities have reduced enforcement of minority protections.

In March, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned Israeli police for blocking Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Washington expressed concerns to Israel about the incident. -Israeli war on Iran. At a May 13 Knesset hearing on rising anti-Christian violence, Israeli lawmaker Gilad Kariv called the incidents an “educational failure” and said, “These incidents cast a moral stain on the state of Israel and Israeli society.

Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, the Vatican’s ambassador to Israel, said efforts are under way to address tensions.