The Israeli military on Sunday declared that Taybeh, the last village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that is populated entirely by Christians, was a “closed military zone” amid rising Jewish settler violence against the town.
The IDF said it took the step due to “some violent attacks by Israelis in the region” and that it meant Israelis and other non-residents of the village could not enter.
While the step is being taken in the name of protecting the village, Taybeh’s mayor, Suleiman Khouria, said the step further restricts the town’s residents and fails to actually protect them from settlers, calling it an “attempt to further tighten the noose on villagers rather than a measure to protect them.”
“Some residents make their living from tourism, making restrictions on foreign entry a direct blow to economic activity and income sources,” Khouria told the Palestinian news agency WAFA. He said that the village never received an official notification from the IDF about the closure and that he only heard about it through media reports.
Vatican News on Monday published an interview with Father Bashar Fawadleh, a Catholic priest in Taybeh, who detailed the uptick in settler violence. “Many families across the west, east, and south of Taybeh are suffering from this settler violence. As they always do, they have been setting fire to vacant land,” he said.
“Over the last few months, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. Almost daily, we face incursions, attacks on private property, the destruction of farmland, road closures, travel restrictions, and relentless pressure on the population,” Fawadleh added.
Fawadleh called for international support for the town and appealed to Pope Leo XIV. “Through your platform, I would like to appeal directly to Pope Leo XIV to intervene for this last Christian village in the West Bank, so that these settler attacks cease and the occupation of our land stops. We simply want to live in peace, with justice and dignity,” he said.
Taybeh received international attention last year when settlers set a fire next to the historic Church of St. George, which was first built in the fifth century. In a statement on the attack, Father Fawadleh and the priests from the Melkite Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in the town noted that Taybeh was known in the Gospel as Ephrahim, the “place to which Jesus withdrew before His Passion.” They said the village’s wholly Christian population “represents a unique presence in the region, a living testimony that dates back to the time of Christ.”
Church leaders from the region and foreign diplomats visited Taybeh in the aftermath of the attack and strongly condemned the settler violence against the Christian village, but it has only increased since then, following a pattern across the entire West Bank.
