‘Death to Christians!’ Holy Land Christians Under Unprecedented Attack in Far-Right Israel
(Chris Menahan) Christians are being viciously persecuted, attacked, spat on and abused in Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right regime and authorities are doing little to nothing to hold their abusers to account, according to Christian leaders in the Holy Land.
Churches are being vandalized, statues of Jesus Christ smashed and Christian grave sites are being desecrated.
lsraeli occupation forces assault Christians who were observing the Holy Saturday in Jerusalem and prevent them from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. pic.twitter.com/t8QgZ6Ad9i
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) April 15, 2023
On the Holy Saturday, lsraeli occupation forces assault Christians in Jerusalem city. pic.twitter.com/mflGZJRBQc
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) April 15, 2023
lsraeli colonial settlers verbally abuse two nuns and spit at them in occupied Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/xGoy5oT008
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) April 13, 2023
Israeli settelers spit on Christian nuns. It's a hateful vindictive group. pic.twitter.com/lk7m6js6sc
— كلمة حق (@kelemat7aq) April 15, 2023
From AP, “Holy Land Christians say attacks rising in far-right Israel”:
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land has warned in an interview that the rise of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has made life worse for Christians in the birthplace of Christianity.
The influential Vatican-appointed Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told The Associated Press that the region’s 2,000-year-old Christian community has come under increasing attack, with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history emboldening extremists who have harassed clergy and vandalized religious property at a quickening pace.
“The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new,” Pizzaballa said during Easter week from his office, tucked in the limestone passageways of the Old City’s Christian Quarter. “These people feel they are protected … that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.”
[…] Christians say they feel authorities don’t protect their sites from targeted attacks. […]
“The right-wing elements are out to Judaize the Old City and the other lands, and we feel nothing is holding them back now,” said Father Don Binder, a pastor at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem. “Churches have been the major stumbling block.”
