Following last week’s attack against a French nun in Jerusalem, Christian leaders in the Holy Land have spoken out strongly against the rising tide of anti-Christian violence.

Father Oliver Poquillon, the director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem where the 48-year-old nun was a researcher, told Crux Now that Israeli authorities needed to be doing more to stop this “scourge.”

“We strongly condemn this sectarian violence and expect the authorities to treat this unprovoked attack with all the severity it deserves. Beyond the crime that was committed, this growing violence is an existential challenge for Israeli society, which must address it,” he said.

“The scourge of hatred is a shared challenge that calls on us to recognize our common origin and shared responsibility,” the Dominican priest added.

Sami El-Yousef, the Chief Executive Officer of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told Crux Now that attacks against Christians were worsening, in part due to inaction by the Israeli authorities.

“The number of attacks is on the rise and the lack of any meaningful response by the authorities is making the situation much worse,” he said.

RELATED: Israel’s envoy to Christians says Christian presence in Middle East must be preserved

One Vatican official who had been part of the negotiations to establish diplomatic relations between Israel and the Holy See, said the recent attacks on Christians in the Holy Land have been part of a worldwide increase in condemning “the others” in societies, which is also increasing antisemitism.

However, when asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, he said the Vatican has issued several statements on how Christians should speak about Judaism, and “reciprocity” must be observed in the Holy Land.

The attack on the 48-year-old nun occurred April 28 when a man ran up behind her, pushed her over, and kicked her, leaving her bruised.

Israeli police arrested the suspect and released a video of the assault and the arrest.

“The suspect, a 36-year-old male, was identified and subsequently arrested by police,” the force said in a statement 29 April, saying it viewed with “utmost severity” any violence “driven by potentially racist motives and directed toward members of the clergy.”

“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 also read.

The vicar general of the Latin Patriarchate, Bishop William Shomali, told Turkish news agency Anadolu that “the use of the word ‘death’ is repeated in some slogans used by Israeli extremists.”

He also said there was “the need to re-educate those who hold racist ideologies” and that “the police themselves described what happened as a racist assault and called the crime by its proper name.”

Shomali did praise the speed of the Israeli police’s response in arresting the attacker saying the police “did not respond quickly in previous similar incidents, but their action this time is to their credit, and justice requires acknowledging this level of attention and follow-up.”

Recent attacks

Last month, there was also an outcry when an image was circulated online of an Israeli soldier smashing the head of a statue of Jesus with a sledgehammer in Debel, southern Lebanon.

Two Israeli soldiers subsequently received 30-day military prison sentences after the Israeli Israel Defense Forces launched an investigation, finding that the “the soldiers’ conduct completely deviated from IDF orders and values.”

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, expressed both “deep indignation” and “unreserved condemnation” in a statement signed by him and the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land.

“This act constitutes a grave affront to the Christian faith and adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon,” the statement also said.

The photo was indicative of “a disturbing failure in moral and human formation, wherein even the most elementary reverence for the sacred and for the dignity of others has been gravely compromised.”

An estimated 181 incidents of “harassment targeting Christians, Christian symbols, and Christian institutions” were committed in Israel in 2025, according to the Jerusalem based group Religious Freedom Data Center, which documents incidents to do with religious freedom.

Between January and March 2026, the group reported 44 incidents.