Jerusalem, Mar 30 (EFE).- Incidents of harassment against Christians in Israel rose by 63 percent in 2025, according to a report published Monday by two Israeli organizations promoting Jewish-Christian coexistence.
The Rossing Center and the Religious Freedom Data Center recorded 181 cases through an emergency hotline last year, compared with 111 in 2024. The incidents, attributed to Jewish citizens, ranged from spitting and verbal abuse to physical assaults and vandalism of religious sites.
“While these figures represent only the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ they nevertheless reflect a persistent and worrying pattern in which both overt violence and everyday humiliations accumulate into a broader atmosphere of exclusion,” the report said.
Federica Sasso, a project coordinator at the Rossing Center, said that the vast majority of cases were closed “without any investigation or law enforcement action.”
During the report’s presentation in Jerusalem, she also warned of a “growing normalization” of such behavior in public discourse in Israel.
Spitting accounted for 60 percent of reported incidents, followed by insults and threats,18 percent, and damage to Christian religious symbols, 12 percent. Physical violence made up 5 percent of cases, while desecration of holy sites and online harassment represented smaller shares.
Most incidents occurred in Jerusalem, which accounted for 83 percent of cases nationwide. Within the city, 70 percent took place in the Old City, a religiously sensitive area that is home to key sites for Christianity, Islam and Judaism and is heavily patrolled by Israeli security forces.
“Clergy in areas such as Mount Zion and the Armenian Quarter report that harassment has become so routine that stepping outside can carry an almost certain risk of abuse,” the report said.
It also highlighted broader societal attitudes. In a survey of 499 Jewish Israelis conducted in September, 70 percent opposed allowing Christian organizations to purchase land in Israel, while only 38 percent supported teaching Christianity in Jewish schools. Attitudes were more negative among younger and more religious respondents.
About 180,000 Christians live in Israel, most of them Arab, while roughly 45,600 reside in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
Church leaders say conditions are worsening in the Palestinian territories, citing settler violence in areas such as Bethlehem and Taybeh. In Gaza, the war has reduced the Christian population by about half to roughly 600 people. EFE
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