A group of extremist Israeli settlers attacked the Latrun Christian Monastery in occupied Jerusalem, earlier on Tuesday at dawn, and wrote racist graffiti describing Jesus as a “Monkey”, and other graffiti against the Christian religion in general.The extremists also wrote the names of illegal settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Ynet News reported that the wooden door of the Monastery was burnt, and that the Ministry’s abbot, Father Lo’ay told its reporter that a monk sleeping in a guest room woke up to a noise and when he stepped out he saw the main door burning. He then woke up the other ministers.
The Abbot told Ynet that the attack was carried out around 3:30 am, and that the monk who was sleeping in the guest room managed to extinguish the fire before it spread.
Elias, a guard at the Monastery called the police, and told them that he drove by just before the attack and did not see anything that looked suspicious, adding that 10 minutes later he saw the door in flames and also saw the graffiti.
The Ynet further reported that the acting District Police Commander in Jerusalem went to the Ministry on Tuesday morning, and said that the police appointed a special investigation unit into the attack.
The attack falls under the “Price Tag” attacks carried out by extremist Israeli settlers against the Palestinian people, their lands and property, and such attacks have been carried out against several mosques, including some that were completely burnt, and several churches.
Earlier in February this year, extremist Israelis wrote “Death to Christians” on the walls of a Jerusalem church, and slashed the tires of vehicles parked in the area.
Commenting on the latest attack, Archbishop Attallah Hanna of the Orthodox Christian Church said that this assault is “a criminal act, and a very serious assault geared by blind hearts fueled by extremism and racism”.
Hanna told the Maan News Agency that the extremists “only know the language of violence and hatred”, and that they do not want to see any Islamic of Christian Holy Sites in the country.
Hanna further stated that the attack against the Latrun Monastery is part of a series of attacks and crimes carried out by extremist settlers against Christian and Islamic holy sites in Palestine.
In related news, the Israeli Police arrested, on Monday at night, a young Jewish extremist who desecrated Christian graves in Be’er as-Sabe’ (Be’er Shiva), in the south of Israel.
