A Violent Attack, Then an Acquittal
An Israeli court has acquitted a settler who attacked a French Catholic nun in Jerusalem, citing a claimed psychiatric disorder as the basis for dropping the case, despite the attack having drawn international condemnation and an official trial referral earlier this year. The assailant, identified as 36-year-old Yona Simcha Schreiber, a resident of the Bedouel settlement near Salfit in the northern West Bank, had been charged with assault causing injury motivated by hostility toward a religious group, after Israel’s Justice Ministry initially described the case as religiously and racially motivated.
A Researcher Attacked Steps From the Old City.
The attack took place near the Dormition Abbey, just steps from the Nabi Dawud Gate leading into Jerusalem’s Old City, where the 48-year-old French nun, a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Studies in Jerusalem, was attacked by Schreiber, who ran toward her and shoved her violently to the ground, causing her head to strike a stone block. Security camera footage captured the moment of the assault, which sparked widespread outrage after it emerged, drawing condemnation from the French Consulate in Jerusalem, the head of the French School, and Christian community leaders in the city, who described it as part of a broader pattern of racist policies targeting religious minorities in Jerusalem.
Part of a Documented Rise in Attacks on Christians.
The acquittal comes amid a documented rise in settler attacks on Christians in Jerusalem, with rights monitors recording around 155 such attacks in 2025 alone, as the Christian population’s share of Jerusalem’s population has fallen to roughly 2%. The case had directly contradicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated claims that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian community thrives, with Christian leaders in Jerusalem saying the assault reflected a broader pattern of harassment they say Israeli police routinely fail to prevent or seriously prosecute.
The use of a psychiatric disorder claim to secure the acquittal has drawn renewed criticism from local Christian and rights advocates, who argue such rulings send a message that violence against religious minorities in Jerusalem carries little real consequence, further emboldening similar attacks. Jerusalem’s Christian community has repeatedly warned that the failure to hold assailants meaningfully accountable in cases like this one contributes to a climate of impunity that has coincided with a decades-long decline in the city’s Christian population since 1948.
