🚨 PERSECUTED CHURCH ALERT — Catholic Priest Spat On and Harassed in Jerusalem as Anti-Christian Attacks Hit Record Levels
Location: Jerusalem Date: June 10, 2026 Reporting agency: VPP
Father Firas Abedrabbo, parish priest of the Latin Church in Ein Arik near Ramallah, was spat on, verbally insulted, and subjected to obscene gestures by three Jewish religious young men as he left a restaurant near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. He had been having lunch with Israeli friends, including peace activists. The harassment continued for several minutes before his companions came outside and confronted the youths. A police complaint was filed despite documented attempts by officers to discourage the filing. No arrest has been made.
The incident occurred days before the Religious Freedom Data Center presented its latest figures on June 4. Founder Yisca Harani reported that more than 88 incidents of anti-Christian harassment have been documented in Israel in 2026 alone — 63 of them in the second quarter — putting the year on pace to exceed last year’s total of 181 cases. “We have surpassed all our numbers,” she said, “and we haven’t reached the end of June yet.” Incidents include spitting, verbal abuse, vandalism, desecration of graves and crosses, and arson at Christian sites. Most have occurred in Jerusalem’s Old City, on Mount Zion, and near the Armenian Patriarchate.
Israeli authorities have consistently described the incidents as isolated acts by a small minority of underage youth. Christian clergy at the conference rejected that framing, calling harassment an everyday occurrence. Ori Narov of the Israel Religious Action Center noted that of 25 complaints filed between 2012 and 2021, 19 were closed without prosecution. The outcome in Father Firas’s case follows the same pattern.
What This Signals
Eighty-eight documented incidents in five months is not a fringe phenomenon. The data center’s own researchers confirm it is systematically underreported — many victims do not file complaints because they expect nothing to come of it, and Israeli police have validated that expectation for over a decade. When authorities classify spitting on priests and smashing crosses as pranks by youth, they are not describing isolated behavior. They are setting the conditions under which it will continue. Father Firas filed his complaint. No arrest was made. The data will record it as incident eighty-nine.