Israeli police said they arrested several people suspected of spitting in the direction of Christian pilgrims and churches in Jerusalem this week as religious tensions flared anew in the contested capital that the three Abrahamic faiths consider holy.

As Jews celebrate Sukkot—the weeklong Feast of Tabernacles that marks the fall harvest and commemorates the desert wandering of the Jews during the Exodus—processions of ultra-Orthodox Jews through the Old City’s narrow streets have led to numerous spitting incidents and left Jerusalem on edge.