Israeli police arrest man after nun attacked in Jerusalem

The French nun was pushed over and kicked in the apparently unprovoked assault, amid a rise in harassment of Christians in the city by Jewish extremists.

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It shows the woman in a grey habit being shoved from behind, causing her to hit her head on a stone block. Her attacker, who is wearing a Jewish kippah and tzitzit – ritual tassels - initially walks away but then returns to kick her as she lies on the ground.

The assault comes amid a recent rise in harassment of Christian clergy and pilgrims by Jewish extremists in Jerusalem's Old City.

Israeli police arrested a 36-year-old man on suspicion of racially motivated assault, but no charges have yet been brought.

Father Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School, where the nun is a researcher, wrote on X that she was the "victim of an unprovoked assault" in the late afternoon on Tuesday.