CrossFireArabia
By Dr Marwan Asmar
The year 2026 maybe the worst experienced by Christians experienced in the occupied territories as the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.
A latest study by the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) reported there have been 88 reported cases of attacks and harassment on Christians carried out in the Palestinian territories so far this year.
It points out 63 attack cases were carried out in the second quarter of this year alone which would mean 2026 is set to register a new record of abuse against Christians.
This is far higher than that of 2025 which stood at 181 cases.
The violations include spitting incidents and verbal insults, and vandalism of cemeteries, gravestones, statues, and crosses. This is in addition to racist graffiti and desecration of Christian religious sites. Most of these acts are concentrated in the Old City of Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the vicinity of the Armenian Patriarchate.
The RFDC was set up 2023 in Jerusalem to combat the growing anti-Christian harassment and violence in Israel, particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem that grew in the last years from extremist rightwing Jewish religious nationalists and settlers who are left free to roam the city under the protection of the Israeli army.
Nun Violently Attacked
Last April a nun at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in the Old City was violently attacked. As shown by a CCTV camera the attacker came at the nun from behind, shoving her violently to the ground and kicking her.
Two months later a priest from the Latin Patriarchate was attacked outside a restaurant near the Damascus Gate of the Holy City. Eye-witness reports show the priest was cornered, repeatedly spat at, and insulted verbally by three Jewish men.
The incident was reported on the 4th of June by the RFDC. The victim, Father Firas Abedrabbo, a parish priest of the Latin Church in Ein Arik, near Ramallah, was assaulted after his lunch with friends.
His name was reported in the media unlike the 48-year-old French nun who also worked as a researcher at the Archaeological School. Her name was never released to protect her identity, it was reported.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman and is the editor of www.crossfirearabia.com
