‘Death to Christians’: Report documents rising anti-Christian attacks by Israelis in occupied Jerusalem

Christian clergy, nuns, pilgrims and holy sites are facing an increasingly hostile environment in Jerusalem, with a new report documenting a pattern of attacks that includes spitting, physical assault, threats, vandalism, anti-Christian abuse and the targeting of church processions.

The findings come amid growing warnings from Palestinian Christian leaders that Israel’s far-right political climate, settler extremism and official indifference are deepening pressure on the historic Christian presence in Jerusalem and across Palestine.

The latest report by Israel’s Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) recorded 83 acts of harassment against Christians between April and June 2026, across 76 separate incidents. The centre said the incidents were part of a wider pattern that has required the creation of a hotline, legal assistance, volunteer monitoring and even protective accompaniment for nuns and clergy in Jerusalem.

According to the RFDC, Jerusalem remains the epicentre of anti-Christian harassment. Of the 76 incidents recorded in the second quarter of 2026, 68 took place in Jerusalem.

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The Old City of occupied Jerusalem alone accounted for 46 incidents, while Mount Zion — known to Palestinians as Jabal Sahyun — recorded nine and West Jerusalem 13. Only seven incidents were recorded outside Jerusalem, including in Haifa, the Galilee, Tabgha near the Sea of Galilee, the occupied West Bank, Beit Shemesh and Mevaseret Zion, which Israel calls Mevaseret Yerushalayim.

The Armenian Patriarchate Road was the most heavily affected location in the Old City, accounting for 18 incidents. Damascus Gate recorded eight, Jaffa Gate six, Via Dolorosa five and the Jewish Quarter three.

The most common form of abuse was spitting, with 47 cases accounting for 56 per cent of all documented acts of harassment. The report also recorded eight cases of verbal assault, six cases of threatening behaviour, five incidents of trash throwing, four physical assaults, six cases of defacing signage and seven other incidents.

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The RFDC said that, as in previous reports, “the high number of spitting incidents remains particularly striking.” It warned that such acts have increasingly taken place “openly, in broad daylight, and at times in a deliberately demonstrative manner.” In several cases, perpetrators even explained to hotline volunteers, including on camera, why they believed their behaviour was justified. The report also recorded cases in which parents spat and shouted insults in front of their children while encouraging them to behave in the same way.

The organisation warned of “growing boldness”, saying harassment and attacks increasingly occur in public spaces with “little hesitation” by perpetrators. It cited the violent assault on a nun on Mount Zion and verbal abuse directed at a monk in a supermarket as examples of this trend.

One of the most serious incidents took place on 28 April near the Room of the Last Supper on Mount Zion, where, according to the report, a Jewish man “ran toward a nun from a distance, knocked her to the ground, and injured her.” Police video footage documented the assault and a police complaint was filed.

Following that attack, the RFDC hotline began providing protective accompaniment for nuns and clergy travelling to and from Mount Zion. The centre said volunteers have accompanied nuns on their daily journeys since May, while also maintaining a presence during Christian holidays and processions in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In another incident, on 23 May, the Church of the Redeemer in the Old City was targeted after it had closed. According to oral testimony from the church organist, loud banging on the door was accompanied by shouts of “Death to Christians.”

Other incidents targeted Catholic monks and Armenian clergy. On 16 April, a Catholic monk in a supermarket in Talpiot was verbally harassed by a man who shouted, “Get out of the country,” and instructed a child to tell him, “May you die.”

The report also records attacks on processions and pilgrims. On 16 April, a man spat towards a procession accompanying the Coptic Archbishop on David Street. During the procession welcoming the new Apostolic Nuncio on 28 May, a boy or teenager spat towards the procession in the Christian Quarter, while another young man entered the procession near Jaffa Gate and spat in a demonstrative manner.

Christian pilgrims were also targeted. On 15 May, a man spat near Russian pilgrims carrying small crosses in their hands near the Church of the Praetorium on Via Dolorosa. In another case the same day, a man spat towards a group of Russian pilgrims. A police officer briefly detained him but released him after he claimed that he had spat only because of phlegm in his throat.

The report also describes anti-Christian abuse by schoolchildren. On 24 May, high school students from Nofim BaGalil School in Tiberias shouted anti-Christian insults and hateful slogans in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Christian holy sites and symbols were also repeatedly vandalised. Anti-Christian graffiti was painted on a public shelter donated by Evangelical Christians in Mevaseret Zion. Directional signs leading to Capernaum Church were defaced.

On Mount Zion, branches of an olive tree sculpture presented by Pope John Paul II for the millennium were deliberately bent and broken. The report also recorded repeated incidents of bottles, trash and fragments being thrown into monastery compounds, including the Polish Monastery in Jerusalem.