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JERUSALEM — Greater than 30 graves at a historic Christian cemetery in Jerusalem had been discovered toppled and vandalized, the diocese mentioned Wednesday, jolting the Christian minority within the contested metropolis.
Israel’s Overseas Ministry known as the assault an “immoral act” and “an affront to faith.” Jerusalem’s Anglican Archbishop Hosam Naoum known as it a “clear hate crime.” The British consulate mentioned it was simply the most recent in a string of assaults on the Christian neighborhood within the holy metropolis of Jerusalem.
Law enforcement officials had been despatched to the Protestant Cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion to research the profanation. Mount Zion, related in Christian custom with the positioning of the Final Supper that Jesus shared together with his disciples the evening earlier than his crucifixion, can be sacred to Jews and Muslims and has been on the heart of competing non secular claims all through the decadeslong Israeli-Palestinian battle.
Extensively shared safety digicam footage on Sunday confirmed two younger males — each carrying a Jewish skullcap and tzitzit, the knotted ritual fringes worn by observant Jews — breaking into the cemetery, knocking over stone crosses and smashing and stomping on tombstones, leaving a path of particles and damaged headstones.
Among the many destroyed tombs was one containing a nineteenth century bust of Samuel Gobat, the second Protestant Bishop in Jerusalem who died in 1879, the Episcopal diocese mentioned. The graves of three law enforcement officials, British residents serving within the police pressure of what was then British-ruled Palestine, had been additionally vandalized.
The diocese cautioned that the desecration of the cemetery ought to be seen as an ominous warning about “hatred towards Christians.”
“Many stone crosses had been the targets of the vandals, clearly indicating that these legal acts had been motivated by non secular bigotry,” it mentioned, urging authorities to redouble efforts to seek out the perpetrators.
The Protestant Cemetery on the commemorated Mount Zion simply exterior Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis partitions was established in 1848 and was a part of territory that Israel seized within the 1967 Mideast battle. The cemetery homes the graves of dozens of Palestinian law enforcement officials killed in the course of the First and Second World Wars in addition to Christian leaders who died within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Jewish extremists have defaced church property on Mount Zion previously years. Jews contemplate Mount Zion the normal burial place of the biblical King David and a few ultra-Orthodox and nationalist activists have opposed Christian prayer rights on the website. A Jewish seminary often known as the Diaspora Yeshiva has taken over many buildings within the Mount Zion compound.
Some 16,000 Christians reside in Jerusalem, nearly all of whom are Palestinian. Israel claims Jerusalem as its everlasting capital, whereas Palestinians need east Jerusalem because the capital for his or her hoped-for impartial state.
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This story has been clarified to indicate the three law enforcement officials whose graves had been additionally vandalized had been British residents within the police pressure of what was then British-ruled Palestine.