An Israeli Jewish man, his Polish-Christian wife and their adult daughter have apologised after they threw fire crackers in Nazareth’s Church of the Annunciation during a Lenten Mass, triggering an angry reaction from residents in the Galilee town.

 

An Israeli Jewish man, his Polish-Christian wife and their adult daughter have apologised after they threw fire crackers in Nazareth’s Church of the Annunciation during a Lenten Mass, triggering an angry reaction from residents in the Galilee town. The man, Haim Habibi, later told a court on 5 February that his family carried out the attack in desperation after welfare authorities put two of his children in foster homes. The Church of the Annunciation is built above a sunken grotto where, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she was to bear Jesus.