Israeli court acquits Jewish settler who kicked Catholic nun in the head

An Israeli court has acquitted Yona Schreiber, a Jewish settler from the occupied West Bank settlement of Peduel, over a violent assault on a French Catholic nun near Jerusalem’s Old City earlier this year.

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court acquitted Schreiber on Wednesday on the grounds of "mental illness".

Following the ruling, Schreiber’s lawyer, Idan Gamliel, described the attack as an “unfortunate incident” and said the defence took “note” of the nun’s “difficult feelings” over the assault.

Schreiber attacked the 48-year-old nun in April outside the Cenacle on Mount Zion, a site regarded as holy by Christians and Jews.

The nun, a researcher at Jerusalem’s French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, required medical treatment after Schreiber pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head.

The attack drew international condemnation and formed part of a growing pattern of attacks by Jewish extremists against Christians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In May, the French organisation L'Oeuvre d'Orient said Israeli troops demolished a convent belonging to the Salvatorian Sisters, a Greek Catholic religious order, in the village of Yaroun.

In April, an image showing an Israeli soldier using a jackhammer to smash a statue of Jesus on a cross in southern Lebanon went viral on social media.

A recent report by the Rossing Centre for Education and Dialogue documented a sharp rise in attacks on Christians, describing a “continued and expanding pattern of intimidation and aggression”.

It recorded 155 incidents in 2025, including 61 physical assaults, 52 attacks on church property, 28 cases of harassment and 14 instances of vandalised signage. The report said the figures represent only the “tip of the iceberg”.