Religious Jews attack Christian monastery in Jerusalem (VIDEO)
Six religious Jews have been arrested after attacking the historic St. James Armenian Monastery in Jerusalem’s Old City, according to Israeli police.
The group, consisting of five minors and one adult, were caught on video spitting on and banging against the monastery entrance on Sunday night before throwing stones at the walls of the compound, which serves as the regional headquarters of the Armenian Church.
When an Armenian woman began filming the attack from a nearby building, the assailants hurled stones toward her window and shouted abuse at her.
Police subsequently located and arrested all six suspects. Three have been barred from entering the Old City for 15 days, while police have asked a Jerusalem court to extend the detention of the remaining three.
The Armenian Patriarchate has filed a formal complaint and called on US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to press Israel to recognize such incidents as hate crimes.
The assault is the latest in a growing wave of attacks on Christians, clergy, and church property in Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories. Christian leaders say priests and pilgrims are routinely spat on, cursed and assaulted by ultra-Orthodox and radical nationalist Jews, while churches, monasteries, and Christian-owned property have been vandalized.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that young religious Jews have openly described humiliating Christians as a religious duty.
The newspaper documented at least a dozen spitting incidents near the Armenian church during a single nationalist march in May. It also recalled an April attack in which a Jewish extremist shoved a French nun to the ground on Mount Zion, leaving her with a head injury. Some nuns are now reportedly too afraid to walk through Jerusalem alone and are escorted daily by volunteers.
Christians today are routinely “hit, spit at, beaten,” Dormition Abbey Abbot Nikodemus Schnabel told the outlet, adding that this is “not the case of one lost soul,” and that many similar incidents are never documented.
According to the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center, reported incidents have nearly doubled between 2023 and 2025 and are on course to reach another record this year.
Critics say extremists have been emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and senior officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
In a 2017 radio interview, Ben-Gvir defended spitting at priests and churches as an “ancient Jewish tradition” and questioned why the practice should be treated as a crime. After becoming the minister responsible for Israeli law enforcement, he again argued in 2023 that spitting on Christians was “not a criminal case.”
Israeli officials have insisted that they are confronting the problem and view violence and racism “with the utmost severity.”
Church leaders, however, have said that complaints frequently produce little action and warn that continued violence, settlement expansion, and political hostility are driving some of the Holy Land’s oldest Christian communities to leave.
Telegram restored after briefly disappearing from App Store worldwide
Telegram has disappeared from Apple’s App Store, with users in multiple countries reporting they can no longer download the popular messaging service.
The platform, which claims more than 1 billion monthly active users, has long faced accusations in several countries of lax content moderation and failing to crack down on illegal activity.
Users began reporting problems downloading the app on Tuesday shortly after 01:00 GMT. No official reason has been given for the removal.
The app returned about an hour later. “Telegram has been restored on the App Store and should soon be available again for all users,” the company said without elaborating.
Telegram’s official account on X wrote: “Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.”
Last week, Australia’s telecommunications regulator initiated civil proceedings against Telegram for allegedly failing to detect and remove “pro-terror material” from the platform, including videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings.
Last month, Russia placed Telegram’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov on a wanted list on terrorism charges and designated him as a person involved in terrorism and extremism. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) alleges that Durov failed to take down a dating chatbot used by Ukraine to recruit young Russians to commit arson and other forms of sabotage.
Durov, who has lived outside Russia since 2014, said he was put on a terrorist list “for refusing its demands for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram.”
Russia first blocked Telegram in 2018 but lifted the restrictions two years later, citing the company’s cooperation with authorities to combat terrorism. The country banned the service again in February 2026, citing violations of the law.
Durov was briefly detained at an airport outside Paris in 2024 after French authorities accused him of allowing organized crime to proliferate on Telegram. He later claimed that French intelligence services had tried to pressure him into enacting political censorship, including a crackdown on conservative voices during Romania’s contentious 2025 presidential elections. France has denied his claims.
The messenger was briefly blocked in Brazil in March 2022 and April 2023, after authorities accused the platform of failing to curb the spread of misinformation and neo-Nazi chat groups.
Turkish cargo ship hit in suspected Ukrainian attack near Russian port (VIDEOS)
A Turkish-operated cargo ship was hit in an apparent Ukrainian drone attack off the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk late on Monday.
According to Türkiye’s Directorate General of Maritime Affairs (DGM), the Cameroon-flagged Nadezhda was sailing from Novorossiysk to the Turkish port of Samsun when it was attacked by drones.
Russian vessels evacuated the crew from the ship, which sustained damage to its bow and living quarters, the DGM said. Initial reports indicated that three people on board were injured.
3 Ağustos 2026 tarihinde, Novorossiysk Limanı’ndan Samsun’a seyir hâlinde bulunan NADEZHDA isimli Ro-Ro gemisinin, Novorossiysk’e yaklaşık 20 deniz mili açıkta dron saldırısına uğradığı bilgisi alınmıştır.
— DENİZCİLİK GENEL MÜDÜRLÜĞÜ (@denizcilikgm) August 3, 2026
Gemide, 13’ü Türk vatandaşı olmak üzere toplam 22 mürettebat… pic.twitter.com/yb1pDYmCBE
The Nadezhda had a crew of 22, including 13 Turkish citizens, according to the DGM. Turkish media reported that the vessel was operated by Samsun-based Kalyoncu Shipping and had been carrying fruit and vegetables from Türkiye to Russia.
Rusya'ya sebze taşıyordu: Türk Ro-ro gemisine saldırı!
— Cumhuriyet (@cumhuriyetgzt1) August 3, 2026
4 mürettebat yaralandıhttps://t.co/JELlPdKDyIpic.twitter.com/JQVWqZMd03
Although Turkish authorities did not identify the perpetrator, the ship’s captain, Yalcin Sahin, was quoted by Turkish media as saying that six or seven Ukrainian drones had struck the vessel. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted civilian ships near Russia’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts, as well as tankers off the Turkish coast.
Ukrainian attack drones struck the Russian ro/ro vehicle carrier Nadezhda last night off the coast of Novorossiysk, severely damaging the vessel and setting it ablaze. pic.twitter.com/e44P6wsfNX
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 3, 2026
Ukraine has stepped up attacks on cargo ships in recent months in an effort to disrupt Russia’s logistics. Russia has also increased strikes on vessels it says were transporting military equipment to Ukraine.
On July 25, Ukraine struck an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, killing one sailor. Tehran has denied that the vessel was carrying military cargo and vowed to retaliate. Kyiv initially dismissed Iran’s threats as “unjustified” but later stated that it would not intentionally target a civilian ship and that it sought to avoid escalation with Iran.
