RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) \u2014 Israeli police said Friday that they arrested a 36-year-old caught on video attacking a nun in the latest incident targeting Christians near Jerusalem\u2019s Old City.<\/p>\n
Police said the unnamed man was arrested after the attack Wednesday near David\u2019s Tomb \u2014 a holy site outside Zion\u2019s Gate on the southern side of the Old City \u2014 \u201con suspicion of a racially motivated attack,\u201d and remained in custody.<\/p>\n
Police video showed the nun bruised and the attacker wearing tzitzit, a fringed undergarment worn by some observant Jewish men.<\/p>\n
Olivier Poquillon, the director of the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, said the nun was a researcher at the school. He called the attack an \u201cact of sectarian violence\u201d in a post on X.<\/p>\n
The Old City in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem is a centuries-old walled enclave built atop millennia of history and home to some of the holiest sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is a flash point for tensions as access and ownership to the sites are deeply entangled with the historic and political claims that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n
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 ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshiva students.<\/p>\n
Wadie Abunassar, the coordinator of the Holy Land Christian Forum, 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.<\/p>\n
He said he felt \u201cgreat anger on the system and great sadness because I feel that this will not end anytime soon.\u201d One of the problems, he said, was the deterrence against such violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany times in such cases there are no arrests and if there are arrests, sometimes after one or two days, (suspects) are released,\u201d he added. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arrest comes as Israeli treatment of religious minorities is under scrutiny, weeks after police limited access for holiday worship<\/a> to Muslims as well as Christians, up to Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.<\/p>\n