Reports of harassment against Christians in Israel have risen sharply, according to new figures released by the Religious Freedom Data Center.
The Jerusalem-based organisation said it had already documented more than 88 incidents during the first half of 2026, including 63 recorded during the second quarter alone. If the trend continues, the total is expected to surpass the 181 cases documented during 2025.
Yisca Harani, founder of the Religious Freedom Data Center, said the increase had already exceeded expectations before the year had reached its halfway point. “We have surpassed all our numbers, and we haven’t reached the end of June yet,” she said while presenting the findings on 4 June.
The documented cases include spitting, verbal insults, vandalism, desecration of graves and religious symbols, graffiti, and damage to church property. Other incidents have been reported beyond Jerusalem, including acts of vandalism and arson directed at Christian holy sites in northern Israel.
Christian clergy and religious living in the city have long complained that harassment is a routine feature of daily life, particularly in areas where priests, monks, and nuns are easily identifiable by their religious dress.
Harani, a Jewish-Israeli scholar who specialises in Christian-Jewish relations, told OSV news that many officials continued to regard such incidents as isolated acts carried out by a small number of extremists, often young people. She argued that this approach failed to recognise the scale of the problem.
“Most of the incidents, which include spitting and verbal insults, vandalism and desecration of graves, tombstones, statues and crosses, and defacement of signs and graffiti, have taken place in Jerusalem’s Old City, on Mount Zion and near the Armenian Patriarchate,” she said.
Concerns over the response of law enforcement authorities were also raised during the presentation of the report. According to OSV news, Ori Narov, director of the legal department of the Israel Religious Action Center, said that relatively few complaints resulted in successful investigations. He told participants that, of 25 complaints submitted by his organisation between 2012 and 2021, 19 cases had been closed without further action.
According to Narov, authorities frequently cited reasons including the inability to identify suspects, conclusions that no offence had been committed, or decisions that investigations were not warranted.
Despite those difficulties, he urged Christian leaders and institutions to continue reporting incidents and seeking legal remedies. “I have no doubt that the road is long,” Narov said. “But as we said, we are not afraid of a long road, and we will also reach a better future.”
The latest figures follow similar findings published by the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, another Jerusalem-based organisation that monitors relations between religious communities.
The Rossing Center recorded 111 incidents targeting Christians during 2024, compared with 94 in the previous year. Its most recent report documented 155 incidents during 2025, representing a substantial increase. Physical assaults, particularly spitting directed at clergy, accounted for the largest category of complaints, followed by attacks on churches and Christian property, verbal harassment, and the defacement of signs.
Christians constitute less than two per cent of Israel’s population, numbering approximately 180,000 to 200,000 people. The majority are Arab Christians belonging to a variety of traditions, including the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches.
While Israel guarantees freedom of religion in law and is not generally grouped alongside countries where Christians face systematic state persecution, Church leaders have repeatedly expressed concern about the atmosphere confronting Christian communities, particularly in Jerusalem.
Photo credit: Gerd Eichmann – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95703949
