When Jews Attack 480 – Victim – Christian Church – Attackers – Israelis

The Israeli police have opened an investigation into a graffiti attack on the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem, where messages scrawled on the walls by vandals called for the death of Christians.

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The grandiose abbey – built on the site where it is believed the Virgin Mary passed away – was vandalised in the early hours of Sunday morning. The perpetrators have not been identified but the graffiti suggests they were Jewish extremists, who have been behind a number of recent attacks on Christian sites.

“Death to the heathen Christians the enemies of Israel,” “Christians to Hell” and “The revenge of the people of Israel is yet to come,” were among the messages scrawled on the abbey’s walls in red and black ink, some accompanied by pictures of a bloodied sword and the star of David.

The site, located just outside of the Old City of Jerusalem on the slopes of Mount Zion, is situated close to another key religious site – the Cenacle, revered by Christians as the room of Jesus’s Last Supper, and by Jews as the tomb of King David.

The Latinate Patriarchate strongly condemned the incident, saying that “the unique remedy for such behaviour is to control the kind of education given in the schools where these young people have been educated, and to follow up those who incite intolerance against Christians.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the incident is “deserving of every condemnation, there is no place for actions like these”, and emphasised that Israel is “the only place in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing”.

Gilad Erdan, the country’s public security minister, vowed to “respond with zero tolerance against anyone attempting to harm the democratic foundations of the State of Israel and its religious freedom”.

The abbey was previously defaced with similar graffiti in 2012 and 2013, while in 2014, immediately following Pope Francis’s mass in the abbey, an assailant set fire to a book containing visitors’ prayers.

The incident comes amid a spike in attacks against Christian and Muslim sites. Only last week, the Latin Patriarchate reported that graves located in a Catholic graveyard near Jerusalem were desecrated by vandals.

Earlier this month, an IDF soldier was sentenced to 45 months in prison for passing on information to Jewish religious extremists in order to help them evade detection and continue hate attacks.