A video of an attack on a French Catholic nun and archeological researcher in Jerusalem has caused widespread revulsion and been denounced as a “shameful act” by Israel’s foreign ministry.
In the video, a man runs up behind the nun as she walks down a street and pushes her over with force, so that the victim comes close to hitting her head on a block of stone. After walking away a few paces, the attacker, who appears to be Jewish, returns to kick the nun as she lies on the ground and only stops when a passerby intervenes.
The nun’s face was grazed but she was not reported to be seriously injured. The Israeli police said they had arrested a 36-year-old man, and that the force would “continue to act with a heavy hand and zero tolerance in order to preserve and maintain the proper and safe fabric of life for all ethnicities and religions in the city of Jerusalem”.