Hate-Crime Charge Over Attack on Nun at King David's Tomb

Israel’s State Attorney’s Office indicted a 36-year-old man, Yonah Shreiber, on charges of assaulting a Christian nun in the Old City of Jerusalem, in an incident prosecutors treated as a hate crime. The indictment was filed on a Thursday, according to the release.

According to the indictment and the security camera footage cited in the case, the attack took place near King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, just outside the Old City walls. Shreiber is seen running at the nun from behind, pushing her to the ground and kicking her as she lay on the pavement; he then walked away briefly before returning and kicking her again. When a passer-by tried to intervene, prosecutors say, Shreiber punched and kicked him too. The nun suffered facial bruising, leg injuries and a head injury that left her dizzy. Shreiber, a resident of Peduel, was charged with assault causing actual bodily harm with an aggravating religious motive.

What an aggravating religious motive does to a charge

Israeli law does not have a separate offence called a hate crime; instead, hostility towards a group on religious grounds is attached to an ordinary offence and raises what a court may impose. Assault causing actual bodily harm carries a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, doubling to six years where the religious-hostility element is proven, the Times of Israel reported on 7 May 2026. Prosecutors asked that the defendant remain in custody until the end of proceedings. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported the same day that the woman was a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and that the indictment alleged the defendant singled her out after identifying her as a Catholic nun.

Mount Zion, a hill claimed by two liturgies

The site where the attack happened is one of the most layered pieces of ground in Jerusalem. The same building complex holds what Jewish tradition venerates as the Tomb of King David and what Christians know as the Cenacle, the room associated with the Last Supper. Clergy in habits are a constant presence there, which is part of why the location carried weight in the prosecution’s framing of motive.

A pattern Christian leaders have been complaining about

Church figures described the assault as part of a broader problem rather than an isolated act. The director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School said the scourge of hatred was a common challenge, an adviser to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem called it a repulsive and barbaric hate crime against a defenceless nun, and the coordinator of the Holy Land Christian Forum said that in many such cases there were no arrests at all, and that where there were arrests the suspects were often released after a day or two, NBC News reported on 1 May 2026. Israeli police said they had zero tolerance for violence and the foreign ministry condemned the attack. Reporting on the case noted that clergy in the Old City have for years been spat at, harassed and assaulted by Jewish extremists.

Two separate military cases

The same release described two unrelated incidents involving Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon that had drawn disciplinary responses. In one, a soldier desecrated a crucifix with a sledgehammer near the Christian village of Debel; he and another soldier who photographed the act were removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days in military detention, and six other soldiers who were present but neither stopped nor reported the act were summoned for further review. In the second, a soldier was photographed putting a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary while smoking. The image circulated online and prompted an internal investigation; an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the photograph had been taken several weeks earlier and that disciplinary measures would be set once the investigation reported.

What is still unclear

The release did not record any plea, set a trial date or give the nun’s name, and it did not say whether the passer-by who was attacked is a complainant in the case. On the military incidents, it did not say what unit the soldiers belonged to, what the six soldiers summoned for review face, or when the investigation into the Virgin Mary photograph would conclude.