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Israeli police reported the arrest of an American tourist who broke the statue of Christ in a church located in Jerusalem's Old City, AP reports.

The incident took place at the Roman Catholic Church of the Scourge on the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus is believed to have walked to his crucifixion.

Police said they made the arrest with the help of a church security guard. Police said a mental health evaluation of the man is under way. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment.

The incident came amid heightened tensions in Jerusalem and the region as a whole. 

The unrest began in the first weeks of the new far-right Israeli government coming to power, some of whose ultra-nationalist religious members used inflammatory anti-Arab rhetoric.

Father Nicodemus Schnabel of the Assumption Monastery near the Old City attributed the incident to the nature of the new government.

In late January, radicals attacked the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Armenians.

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