Police in Israel announced the arrest of a man suspected in the assault of a French nun working in Jerusalem as a researcher. Source: OSV News.
In a statement posted to X on April 29, Israeli police said it launched an investigation after the assault was reported, which led to the man’s arrest and his detention is expected to be extended.
“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 statement read.
“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.”
The police also posted a video of the arrest as well as an image of the bruised right side of the injured nun’s head.
The nun, who worked as a researcher at the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, was attacked on April 28 near the Cenacle, the site of the Last Supper, according to the school’s director, Dominican Father Olivier Poquillon.
According to The Times of Israel, Fr Poquillon told the French news agency AFP that in the late afternoon, the nun “felt someone come up behind her and throw her with full force onto a rock”.
“While the sister was on the ground, the man began to kick her repeatedly,” Fr Poquillon told AFP.
The Dominican priest also took to X to condemn the “unprovoked assault” on the nun as an “act of sectarian violence” and called on authorities to “act swiftly and firmly” in a post on X.
The attack also drew condemnation from the French Consulate General in Jerusalem. Wishing the nun a swift recovery, the consulate called for the attacker “to be brought to justice for this act and for justice to be served.”
The Hebrew University’s Faculty of Comparative Religion also took to social media to express its shock at the “heinous and utterly dangerous hate crime,” which it said was “part of a deeply disturbing rise in Christianophobia that is becoming alarmingly prevalent in the Old City of Jerusalem and in many other places across Israel.”
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Suspect arrested for assault against French nun in Jerusalem (By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News)
