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Religious Jews attack Christian monastery in Jerusalem (VIDEO)
Six suspects were arrested after spitting on the entrance and hurling stones at the historic compound.When an Armenian woman began filming the attack from a nearby building, the assailants hurled stones toward her window and shouted abuse at her.
Police subsequently located and arrested all six suspects. Three have been barred from entering the Old City for 15 days, while police have asked a Jerusalem court to extend the detention of the remaining three.
The Armenian Patriarchate has filed a formal complaint and called on US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to press Israel to recognize such incidents as hate crimes.
The assault is the latest in a growing wave of attacks on Christians, clergy, and church property in Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories. Christian leaders say priests and pilgrims are routinely spat on, cursed and assaulted by ultra-Orthodox and radical nationalist Jews, while churches, monasteries, and Christian-owned property have been vandalized.
According to the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, reported incidents have nearly doubled between 2023 and 2025 and are on course to reach another record this year.
Critics say extremists have been emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and senior officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
In a 2017 radio interview, Ben-Gvir defended spitting at priests and churches as an “ancient Jewish tradition” and questioned why the practice should be treated as a crime. After becoming the minister responsible for Israeli law enforcement, he again argued in 2023 that spitting on Christians was “not a criminal case.”
Church leaders, however, have said that complaints frequently produce little action and warn that continued violence, settlement expansion, and political hostility are driving some of the Holy Land’s oldest Christian communities to leave.