Israeli cops have arrested the Jewish extremist suspected of attacking a Catholic nun in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
The victim, who toils at the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, isn’t identified, but the suspect in the brutal wilding, X reports say, is Yonah Schreiber.
Israeli cops say they won’t tolerate anti-Christian harassment or violence, but the Religious Freedom Data Center avers that attacks like that on the nun are common, and last year numbered 181. So far this year, the center has recorded more than three dozen such attacks.
The Attack
Video shows the attacker run up behind the unsuspecting nun near the Tomb of David and shove her to the ground. He walks away in the direction whence he came, then returns to kick her in the side.
“Police said Wednesday they had arrested a Jewish man suspected of assaulting a French nun in Jerusalem the previous day, saying they had a zero-tolerance policy on attacks against religious figures,” The Times of Israel reported:
“The suspect, a 36-year-old male, was identified and subsequently arrested by police,” the force said in a statement, adding it viewed with “utmost severity” any violent act “driven by potentially racist motives and directed toward members of the clergy.”
The website noted that the suspect is wearing a tzitzit, a ritual knotted cord. He attacked the nun at the Cenacle, the building that contains the Upper Room, where Jesus Christ ate the Last Supper with the Apostles and where the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles, the Virgin Mary, and 108 others on Pentecost. It is also said to be the site of King David’s tomb.
“The Israel Police treats any attack on members of the clergy and religious communities with the utmost seriousness and applies a policy of zero tolerance to all acts of violence,” the police force wrote on X:
In a city sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, we remain committed to protecting all communities and ensuring those responsible for violence are held accountable.
“We strongly condemn this despicable attack,” the Israel Foreign Ministry said:
Violence against innocent individuals, and especially against members of religious communities, has no place in our society. This shameful act 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.
We extend our sincere sympathies to the nun, who was pushed to the ground and physically attacked, and we convey our solidarity with the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem.
Said Father Olivier Poquillon, Dominican priest and chief of the French school, “the scourge of hatred is a common challenge.”
Christian Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan identified Schreiber as the suspect. So also did the anti-terrorist Israel Dog Unit.
Other Attacks
The savage attack on the nun is just one of many, and was followed, video shows, of a man spitting on the ground in front the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Thus far this year, the Religious Freedom Data Center, founded in 2023 to track anti-Christian crimes and harassment, has recorded more than three dozen such attacks. These include 22 spitting assaults, six defaced signs, and two vandalisms. Last year, the center tallied 181 such attacks, 78 percent of which were spitting and verbal assaults.
The attacks intensify during Jewish and Christian holy days. The report noted that leading rabbis have condemned the attacks.
Video posted to X yesterday depicts vicious assaults.
The attack on the nun comes after an Israeli soldier was recorded smashing the corpus of Jesus Christ on a crucifix in southern Lebanon. Though the IDF condemned the attack, others continue, independent journalist Mario Nawfal reported on X.
“Israel demolished a monastery and a nuns’ school in the Lebanese village of Yaroun. Soldiers were filmed manually laying explosives inside religious buildings,” he wrote:
At least 9 religious sites gone across the border villages. Churches. Mosques. Roman-era shrines on UNESCO’s protected list.
“American Christians speak out!!!” former GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote:
America can’t be silent and must stop funding Israel to do such atrocities!!!
But some Christians will be silent or even applaud such hatred, independent journalist Glenn Greenwald explained after the crucifix vandalism. Israel-first Christian Zionists, he wrote, will likely say that “[t]his Israeli soldier was absolutely justified in smashing the head of the Jesus Christ statue because Hezbollah and Hamas were hiding inside. We owe him our gratitude.🙏.”
