Youth of Ethiopian origin are planning to attack a Christian mission in their Rehovot neighborhood, Ethiopian community chief rabbi Itzhak Zagai told city Mayor Shuki Porer Wednesday.

Zagai told Porer in a letter that if the mission did not cease activities immediately, youths would blow up the building with gas tanks during operational hours.

According to Zagai, the mission has been trying to convert new Ethiopian immigrants to Christianity through bribery and "promises of wonderful miracles." The Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Rehovot, highly-populated by Ethiopian immigrants, has become a major center for the mission's activities.

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"The mission's placement in Kiryat Moshe was not randomly chosen, and its purpose is to use the immigrants for mission activities," wrote Zagai.

"This place cannot continue to operate in contradiction to the residents' beliefs and philosophies. As a public authority and citizen, I feel it my duty to warn what might happen to the mission if it continues to operate as a cult in our neighborhood."

In a conversation with Haaretz, Zagai called the missionaries "traitors to themselves, their children, and their history. They are searching for water from another's well, and they will find only snakes and mice. We must firmly uproot the mission and its activities, for it is harming the residents' way of life and is contradictive to their faith and beliefs."

Rehovot Chief Rabbi Simhon Cohen Cook has also joined efforts to uproot the mission, and participated in two city meetings to discuss the issue.

The municipality said in response, "Zagai's request is being reviewed by the city's council. At this point, the municipality does not have the authority to operate on this issue."