More than 30 people wearing ski masks, some of them armed with sticks and tear gas grenades, attacked a group of Armenian bishops, priests, deacons, students of the Armenian Theological Academy and other Armenians in the Old City of Jerusalem Thursday, according to the Armenian Patriarchate.
A statement issued by the patriarchate read that "several priests, students, and indigenous Armenians are seriously injured" in a "mass and coordinated physical attack."
“The Armenian Patriarchate’s existential threat is now a physical reality. Bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians, and indigenous Armenians are fighting for their very lives on the ground. We are calling on authorities around the world and the international media to help us save the Armenian Quarter from a violent demise that is being locally supported by unnamed entities,” read the statement.
The patriarchate claims that the attack was perpetrated by criminal elements reacting to a lawsuit it submitted on Wednesday to the District Court of Jerusalem over the purported sale of the Cow’s Garden, a plot of land in the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City, used for several years now for parking. It is the last large open space inside Jerusalem’s walled city.
