Occupied Jerusalem: The Israeli regime said it was investigating a racist attack in which anti-Christian messages were scrawled in Hebrew on the walls and doors of a monastery in occupied Jerusalem.
“Idols will be extirpated” - a line lifted from the Jewish prayer service - and “Christians Go to Hell” were among graffiti left outside the Dormition Abbey with felt-tip pens.
The varying handwriting suggested several vandals had been involved.
The Benedictine monastery, on Mount Zion in the Old City, is near a site where many Christians believe Jesus held the Last Supper as well as a tomb revered as the last resting place of the biblical King David, which draws many Jewish worshippers.
There has been a spate of hate crimes by Jewish militants targeting Muslim and Christian sites as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists.
In a statement, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem described the Dormition Abbey as “a significant place for interreligious dialogue between Judaism and Christianity” and voiced “hope that the perpetrators (of the vandalism) will be arrested before they put proposed threats into action”.
Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem since 1967 is not recognised internationally.
A fierce wave of violence has swept Israel and Palestine over the past four months after repeated Jewish raids on Al Haram Al Sharif, which houses the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
Under a status quo agreement with the Israeli regime, Jews are allowed to visit the holy site but not pray there.
Palestinians view the raids as a flagrant aggression on Muslim and Palestinian heritage. They say Israelis want to erase Palestinian identity from the city and completely Judaise it.
Hanna Eisa, Secretary General of the Christian-Muslim Commission for support of Jerusalem holds Israel responsible for the current upswing in violence and says the Israeli regime has encouraged the illegal raids.
He says Arab and Muslim states should work actively with the United Nations to highlight Israeli abuses.
In December, two Jewish militants were indicted after they set fire to a Palestinian home in July killing a toddler and his parents.
The arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, while his mother, Riham, and father, Sa’ad, later died of their injuries. Ali’s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived.
Critics say that similar, albeit not deadly, attacks have festered for years with little action taken by the Israeli government. For months, Palestinians watched angrily as the case remained unsolved, intensifying a feeling of skewed justice in the occupied territory, where Palestinians are prosecuted under a separate system of military law that gives them few rights. The arson also touched on Palestinian fears of Jewish militants, who have attacked Palestinian property with impunity. Jewish thugs have for years vandalised or set fire to Palestinian property, as well as mosques, churches, the offices of dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases.
