Nuns, priests, and worshippers describe rising abuse, stone-throwing, and fear in the Holy City as anti-Christian incidents surge
Published 6 Aug, 2026 18:07
By Charlotte Dubenskij, an award-nominated journalist who has covered Yellow Vest protests in France, conflicts in Syria and the Philippines, and is now based in Israel for RT
“That very first night we were so scared, we were paralysed with fear. I can honestly say that for the first time, I was afraid to go out alone the next morning. I mean, we were never afraid before. Never.”
This is the testimony of Sister Elizaveta from the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem. In an exclusive interview with RT she outlines the abuse and attacks nuns from the mission are being subjected to in the Holy City.
At the end of July, Sister Elizaveta and three other nuns from the mission were walking back from a night vigil when they realized something wasn’t quite right. “We finished the night service at the tomb of the Lord. We exited through the New Gate. That’s where we came across some policemen, we smiled at them, and they smiled right back at us,” Sister Elizaveta says, adding, “And literally after 200 meters, on the crossroads near Notre Dame, we started hearing rude screaming and swearing in Hebrew.”
The nuns attempted to ignore the aggressive taunts and continued walking. However, they were stopped from crossing the road by a red traffic signal and the group closed in. Sister Elizaveta says they began hurling stones at the sisters.
“The stones started flying,” she says. “I noted that they threw very hard. That is, it’s not just to throw to scare a person, it was such a blow to defeat.” Sister Elizaveta says some of the stones struck them, including one which hit her fellow sister, Antonia, in the chest. She’s grateful the attack didn’t result in any serious injuries. “Thank God that the attack wasn’t fatal.”
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Attacks like this are becoming more and more commonplace in Israel, with the Holy City in Jerusalem seemingly a pinch point. A new report from a Jewish organization, the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), shows incidents against Christians have nearly doubled in the past three months. There were 83 reported anti-Christian incidents in the second quarter of 2026, up from 44 in the first quarter.
The organization’s founder and director is Yisca Harani. She’s concerned about the ever-growing creep of anti-Christian incidents in Israel and says what’s being reported is likely only the tip of the iceberg.
“Everything now is very tense and very oriented towards Jewish, unfortunately, I must say this, supremacy,” Yisca says. “There’s a feeling, especially in the last three years, since the Hamas attack on Israel, there’s a lot of nervousness that has turned people’s minds to black-and-white thinking. It’s either the Jewish, Israeli, or enemies – the rest of the world.”
Yisca, who herself is a practicing Jew, believes much of the issue stems from a lack of education as to who Christians are and what they believe. “There’s no education about Christianity. Christianity is only learned through the traumas and the realistic traumas of the Jewish people,” she explains. “With that knowledge, once a person sees a cross, and in the atmosphere of black and white… everybody wants to annihilate us, then all of a sudden the one thing that rises to the mind is, this person, next thing, if he could choose, he would do a pogrom. He would join the Nazis.”
Yisca points out that there are Christian Israeli citizens who serve in the IDF and the Israeli Police Force, who contribute to the safety and security of Israel. Yet, despite their contribution, she believes the current Israeli government is pushing the country towards becoming a more Jewish religious state.
“Add to it the government who is really pushing towards a very halakhic religious state and in the last years this dream about a temple and therefore if there is a temple then this country should be perhaps cleansed from anyone who is not, you know, a temple worshipper,” she says. “At least half of this country was taken captive and hostages by this mindset.”
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The RFDC has hundreds of volunteers who are documenting incidents across Israel, though the focus is on the Holy City. Those volunteers, who are mainly Jewish, are often equipped with body cameras to document any aggression. But even with such evidence, Yisca claims the authorities are often ignoring the problem and many of the crimes being committed go unpunished.
“The police closing the files that I submit, it means not that the police couldn’t catch them, they were not interested enough in catching them, but they were not interested because the authorities above told the police, don’t bother about it,” she says.
Yisca is also clear that these issues are being caused by a small, though growing, extreme section of Israeli society. “I can testify that there are hundreds and thousands of people who go not spitting, not saying bad words.”
In April, a particularly brutal attack on a nun in the Holy City was captured on CCTV. In the video a man wearing a Jewish kippah and tzitzit – ritual tassels – violently attacks her from behind. He initially walks away but then returns to kick her while she is on the ground, defenseless. That attack sparked international outcry. It even warranted a response from senior Israeli politicians who condemned the attack. The suspect was later arrested.
This week alone more video evidence has emerged of Jewish youths spitting and throwing stones towards the entrance of the Saint James Monastery in the Armenian Quarter of the Holy City. The Israeli police say six individuals – five minors and one adult – have been detained as a result of enquiries.
Other incidents are more difficult to tag as being specifically anti-Christian, though they are clearly perpetrated against individuals who are seen as ‘not Jewish’. Father Markari, who’s also from the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, told RT he was in a car when the road in front of them was set alight.
“We drove through Mea Shearim… and just while we were standing on this traffic light, they were trying to pour some kind of burning liquid on the road in front of us, which was then set on fire,” Father Markari says. This incident took place on Shabbat – the Jewish Sabbath – in a more observant area of Jerusalem. While the vehicle Father Markari was in had diplomatic plates, there were no religious symbols on it.
Father Markari explains attacks are frequent, but this was a new low. “Usually, there are bottles flying into the car… stones… but never before was something was set on fire, next to a gas station. This is something new.”
These increasing attacks on the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission have now been raised with the Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov. He told RT his office is treating these incidents with the utmost seriousness.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable situation, as it has a negative psychological impact on representatives of the clergy, calls into question interreligious peace and harmony, balance and status quo in interreligious relations, and generally sends bad signals to Christians about the supposed undesirability of their presence here in the Holy Land,” says Ambassador Viktorov.
He’s now held meetings with senior officers from the Israeli Police Force to raise his concerns. Following that meeting, Ambassador Viktorov says he believes the Israeli authorities understood the seriousness of the situation. “They ask everyone who has experienced such insults or attacks to immediately report to the police using known phone numbers or via the police’s Telegram channel.”
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Ambassador Viktorov also told RT the teenagers who had thrown stones at Sister Elizaveta and the others had been detained. He added that more work needs to be done with individuals who have been radicalized.
Sister Elizaveta also believes education is necessary to stop the spread of hate. She says she has encountered several instances where young Jewish children smile at her and their families intervene. “There were several cases when parents teach their kids how to hate Christians. Last time I met such a family, the dad was walking with the kids, and the children are smiling at me, because I smile at them.”
She says the children’s father then explained to the children that they shouldn’t smile at her. “Their facial expression is that at first they are just confused, then they are scared, then they are already angry with you. And this change of face is terrible, it seems to me. Because this child will already live with the attitude that Christians should be treated like this,” she says sadly.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often claimed his country is a safe space for Christians to practice their religion, but the figures tell a different story. Christians have told RT they feel that they are being pushed out of their land. Some fear to walk the streets of the Holy City in Jerusalem with any visible symbols of their Christianity. While more and more incidents including spitting or verbal abuse are now being recorded, many victims are still too scared to come forward.
