Israel police arrest man suspected of attacking French nun in Jerusalem

Security video released by Israeli police shows a nun being attacked in Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM - Israel’s police said Wednesday they had arrested a man suspected of assaulting a French nun in Jerusalem the previous day, amid a rise in attacks targeting Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“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.”

Contacted by AFP, police declined to disclose the suspect’s nationality, but said he was arrested “on suspicion of assault, with all potential motives under examination.”

Footage shared by police showed bruises on the right side of the nun’s face.

Father Olivier Poquillon, director of Jerusalem’s French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, told AFP the 48-year-old nun was a researcher at the institution and does not wish to speak publicly.

“Yesterday, around 17:45 (1445 GMT) ... she felt someone come up behind her and throw her with full force onto a rock,” Poquillon said, describing Tuesday’s attack.

“While the sister was on the ground, the man began to kick her repeatedly,” he said.

The assault occurred in front of the Cenacle, a building on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion considered holy to both Christians and Jews, the latter of whom regard it as the burial place of the biblical figure King David.

On Tuesday, Poquillon had denounced a “gratuitous assault” in a statement on X, which was reposted by the French Consulate in Jerusalem with a statement “strongly condemning” the incident.

Israel’s foreign ministry also condemned a “shameful act” in a statement on X, and said Israel remained committed “to safeguarding freedom of religion and freedom of worship for all faiths.”

The Faculty of Humanities at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University in a statement expressed “profound shock and condemnation” for the attack, and deplored its increasingly common nature.

“This is not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of rising hostility toward the Christian community and its symbols,” the faculty said.

A European diplomatic source in Jerusalem also noted the assault “occurred in a context where anti-Christian acts have become commonplace, with insults and spitting by (Jewish) extremists targeting clergy in religious dress on a daily basis.”

Earlier this month, the military removed two soldiers from combat duty after they destroyed a statue of Jesus Christ in a southern Lebanon village, an act that drew widespread condemnation.