A man was indicted Thursday after he allegedly shoved to the ground and kicked a French nun in Jerusalem’s Old City last month, and then assaulted a passerby who tried to intervene.

Yona Schreiber, 36, from the West Bank settlement of Peduel, was charged with assault causing tangible bodily harm motivated by hostility toward a religious group.

The assault charge carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, which would be doubled if Schreiber is also convicted of acting out of religious animus.

The State Attorney’s Office requested that Schreiber be kept in custody until the end of the legal proceedings against him.

Video footage of the attack on the Old City’s Mount Zion in Jerusalem on April 28 showed a person identified as Schreiber running up to the French nun from behind and shoving her to the ground.

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The attacker is seen walking away, then returning to kick the woman while she is down, and scuffling with a man who tries to stop him.

According to the indictment against Schreiber, the nun sustained a bloody head wound and suffered dizziness as a result of the assault.

Footage shared by police showed bruises on the right side of her face.

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 King David.


Bruising on the face of a nun following an assault in Jerusalem, April 29, 2026. (Israel Police)

Christians have been targeted for years by extremist Jews in Jerusalem’s Old City, including yeshiva students who spit on people and churches out of an extreme interpretation of the Bible’s injunction to “abhor” idol worshipers.

More recently, Israel has angered Christian communities and drawn rare criticism from the US after a number of incidents, including police briefly barring top Catholic clergy from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ahead of Easter due to safety restrictions amid the war with Iran, soldiers smashing a statue of Jesus in south Lebanon, and another soldier there placing cigarettes in the mouth of a Virgin Mary statue.

The Catholic clergy were eventually granted access to the church for an Easter ceremony, and the soldiers were disciplined.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.


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