An Israeli settler suspected of kicking and wounding a French Catholic nun in Jerusalem will go on trial for assault motivated by hostility towards a religious group, Israel’s justice ministry has said.
The attack on the nun, a 48-year-old researcher at Jerusalem’s French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, occurred on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City.
The suspect, Yona Simcha Schreiber, 36, is from a settlement in the occupied West Bank named Peduel.
He has been under arrest since 29 April and the prosecution has asked that he remain in detention until the trial, the ministry said in a statement. Schreiber faces a charge of assault resulting in injuries, motivated by hostility towards a religious group.
Surveillance footage from the scene shows a man rushing towards the nun, who was dressed in a white habit and black veil, and violently pushing her to the ground where she comes close to hitting her head on a stone block. The man leaves the scene only to return and kick the nun before a passerby intervenes.
The French consulate in Jerusalem condemned the attack, demanding the man be brought to trial.
In a statement at the time of the incident, the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalemexpressed “profound shock and condemnation” and deplored the “troubling pattern” and nature of the attack.
The faculty said: “This is not an isolated incident, but part of a troubling pattern of rising hostility towards the Christian community and its symbols.”
Israel’s foreign ministry also condemned the “shameful act” in a statement on X, and said Israel remained committed “to safeguarding freedom of religion and freedom of worship for all faiths”.
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