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An Israeli man was arrested for spraying “There is a Holocaust in Gaza” on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The man was stopped near the church with a spray can in his possession. (Image Credit: X)
An Israeli man was arrested for allegedly spraying the words “There is a Holocaust in Gaza” on the wall of the historic Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City. The 27-year-old suspect, a resident of the city’s Ramot neighbourhood, was detained overnight after security cameras tracked him near the Old City. He was stopped near the church with a spray can in his possession and police said footage confirmed he was responsible for the graffiti.
The arrest follows similar incidents in recent weeks, when the same phrase appeared on the southern section of the Western Wall and at other sites across Jerusalem. Investigators now suspect the same man was behind those acts, deliberately targeting both Jewish and Christian holy sites.
The suspect, the son of an ultra-Orthodox family, had earlier been arrested over the graffiti but released under restrictive conditions after a court accepted medical evidence from his family citing mental health problems. At the time, the judge described the case as “sad” but said it posed “no danger.”
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, condemned the desecrations, saying, “A holy place is not a place to express protests.”
The graffiti appeared amid the backdrop of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Since October 7, 2023, nearly 63,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza health authorities.
Earlier, Hamas denounced Israel’s reported plan to relocate Gaza residents to the south of the Strip, calling it a “new wave of genocide and displacement” that would worsen already dire conditions for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
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