More than 30 Christian graves were desecrated in an attack at the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, on New Year’s Day. CCTV footage showed two people toppling headstones and smashing gravestones.

The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued a statement saying that ‘the perpetrators of these criminal deeds were clearly motivated by religious bigotry and hatred of Christians’ and that the vandalism was part of a ‘pattern of attacks against Christian sacred sites on Mount Zion and elsewhere that have been on the rise over the past decade’.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, condemned the attack as ‘a blasphemous act’, and the UK Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said it was ‘a disgraceful desecration for which I hope the perpetrators will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law’.

The cemetery was founded in 1848 and contains the graves of British Commonwealth War dead and senior Christian leaders, including Samuel Gobat, the former Bishop of Jerusalem.