A disturbing video circulating online shows a group of Christian visitors being humiliated and spat on in Israeli’s Netanya City.
In the footage, a young Israeli can be seen grabbing their holy cross necklaces and throwing them to the ground, while verbally humiliating them by stating they were not “Israeli”.
Earlier there have been reports of similar incidents in Israel that have highlighted a disturbing trend of violence and harassment against Christians in Israel.
According to the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, there was a troubling rise of physical violence against Christians in various parts of the world such as spitting, harassing and vandalism of sites belonging to Christians. Christian citizens living in places such as the Old City of Jerusalem report frequent harassment by Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youths.
Earlier in 2023, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai met with Christian leaders to address the growing concerns. Herzog acknowledged that many Christian citizens feel unsafe at their places of worship and public spaces in Israel.
“In recent months, we have witnessed extremely serious phenomena in the treatment of members of Christian communities in the Holy Land, our brothers and sisters, Christian citizens, who feel attacked in their places of prayer and their cemeteries, on the street,” said Herzog in front of the 19th-century Carmelite monastery, reported The Times of Israel.
Pertinently, Christians are a part of Israel’s population, though they are a minority group. As of 2022, Christians made up 1.9 percent of Israel’s population, which is about 185,000 people.
