Israeli police said Friday (May 1, 2026) that they arrested a 36-year-old caught on video attacking a nun in the latest incident targeting Christians near Jerusalem’s Old City.
Police said the unnamed man was arrested after the attack on Wednesday (April 29, 2026) near David’s Tomb — a holy site outside Zion’s Gate on the southern side of the Old City — “on suspicion of a racially motivated attack” and remained in custody.
Police video showed the nun bruised and the attacker wearing tzitzit, a fringed undergarment worn by some observant Jewish men.
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 “act of sectarian violence” in a post on X.
The Old City in Israeli-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 flashpoint 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.
