Israeli settlers burn West Bank's last Christian town

Telegraph

5 days ago

The Israeli settlers crept up to the ancient church perched above the West Bank's last Christian-majority town.
As they reached the outer walls, they crouched down to light a ring of fire. Then they revved the engines of their secret weapons brought to fan the flames: garden leaf blowers.
Residents watched in horror as the blaze spread closer to the Church of St George, which dates back to the fifth century.
The flames were doused, but not for long. That evening, settlers returned to the town of Taybeh with assault rifles. The same happened the next day and three days after that.
Bashar Fawadleh, the parish priest, told The Telegraph: 'Each time we called the Israeli police, but they did not come.
'If they attack our sacred site, they can attack anything of ours.'
Settler attacks on Palestinians are on the rise across the occupied West Bank, where roughly half a million Israelis live in Jewish settlements among three million Palestinians.
Five Palestinians have been killed in the last two weeks in villages and towns not far from Taybeh, including Sinjil where two men, including a dual US citizen, were beaten to death by settlers on July 12, prompting fury from the Trump administration.
While most of the violence is directed against Muslims, settlers have started to attack Palestinian Christian villages like Taybeh.
The once-flouring Christian community in the West Bank has dramatically shrunk to less than 2 per cent of the population as many emigrated abroad to escape the violence and religious discrimination.
The same has happened in Gaza, where its roughly 1,000 Christians are mostly sheltering in the war-battered Strip's last three churches, one of which was attacked by Israeli forces last week, killing three civilians.
Walking around the scorched earth that now encircles the Church of St George, Father Bashar warned: 'This is just the beginning. They want to put fear in our hearts to live here.
'These attacks will bleed the town of people as they leave scared. We have lost 10 families already in the past two years.'
Emboldened settlers have set up illegal outposts closer to the town. A makeshift sign written in Hebrew erected outside the ancient town in June read: 'There is no future for you here.'
David Khoury, the leader of Taybeh's Greek Orthodox Church, also fears an exodus.
'The settlers are making problems for us every day. Assaulting, vandalising, terrorising, terrifying our families, destroying our fields of olive trees, damaging our properties,' he said.
There were more than 750 incidents of settler violence recorded in the first half of this year, up from 216 for the whole of 2023, according to the United Nations.
The settler community is seizing the moment to annex land Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six Day War, encouraged by hard-Right ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, including Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who come from settler backgrounds.
The Israeli settlers first attacked Taybeh, north east of Ramallah – the de-facto capital of the Palestinian territory – just before the Oct 7 massacre in southern Israel.
During the devastating war that followed in Gaza, the situation has grown dire.
Visiting Taybeh, the Patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem condemned the most recent violence as 'clearly part of the systematic attacks against Christians that we see unfolding throughout the region'.
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel who is an evangelical Christian and staunch advocate of Israeli settlement construction, also toured the blackened church site on Saturday.
He called the attacks an 'act of terror' and demanded 'harsh consequences' for the perpetrators. But he did not attribute the attack to settlers.
The town is waiting to see if the condemnation will have an effect. The reality, however, is that settlers rarely face any legal consequences.
Last week, the settlers grazed their cattle at the church, in what residents said was a desecration of the holy site.
Throwing his hands in the air, Suleiman Khouryeh, Taybeh's mayor, said: 'We cannot protect the town, they are armed, we are not.'
He believes the settlers are taunting the residents, trying to get them to answer with violence. 'And we will not,' he said.
The mayor is on high alert after the recent killings in Sinjil. 'What happened there could at any moment happen to us – the settlers don't care whether we are Christian or Muslim. We are under attack because we are Palestinian.'
Affirming what other witnesses had told The Telegraph, he said that Israeli police provided no help. 'We call the Israeli guards for help and no one comes. Who will protect us?'
The future of the community is in peril, he warned. 'The youth has lost hope, there is no work, no safety, no life, no future and they want to leave.'
Standing on an arid hill above Taybeh, Ramiz Akhoury pointed towards a huge swath of land to the east of the town, which hosts thousands of olive trees, sheep and chicken farms and fields of crops – the lifeblood of the local economy.
'They have taken it all,' the 37-year-old olive oil producer said forlornly. Over the past two years, he estimates that the settlers have seized 3,000 acres, which includes 70 per cent of his own land.
'They steal our farming equipment, cut our trees, burn them…We are all scared,' he said. In an attack last year, his uncle and aunt were badly beaten while working on the land.
He showed The Telegraph dozens of videos showing the settlers grazing their cattle through Palestinian land, destroying vegetation and olive trees, as well as gun-wielding settlers burning land.
'Why do they come to us carrying guns. Do they want peace? I do not think so,' he said.
In the face of the persistent violence and intimidation, farmers like Mr Akhoury have been forced to surrender most of their best land, ridding many of their livelihoods.
Eid Kabnaeh, a 63-year-old Muslim-Palestinian, lives with 100 members of his extended family, creating their own small village on the outskirts of Taybeh.
A tightly-wired fence has been erected around their open front room to stop settlers throwing stones at them when they drive-by, sometimes in a Jeep that was stolen from the family in April.
They said they have been the target of settler attacks for four years, despite their home being 50 yards away from an Israeli military barracks.
The family lives in constant fear of the next attack, not knowing when or how it will come. 'We are scared to move, we do not take our sheep to the valley to graze, they steal our cars, detain our children, behave like the military,' Mr Kabnaeh said.
On June 25, dozens of men attacked the family while they prayed. 'We smelt the fires before we felt them,' Mr Kabnaeh said.
Footage shows masked attackers setting fire to their cars and then trying to burn their homes. Many of the women and children suffered badly from smoke inhalation.
'It is hard to talk about what happened. The children were the most afraid, now they have nightmares,' Mr Kabnaeh added.
Before leaving, the settlers painted a large Star of David on their outside wall. Mr Kabnaeh claimed that Israeli police just stood and watched from their base.
The grandfather looked drained; his role as the leader of his household has taken its toll. 'I cannot manage this situation,' he said.
If it is not the settlers, he said the Israeli Police harassing the family sometimes daily, often weekly.
'They come at night for checks all the time,' he said, describing how they pulled the house apart and separated the men from the women and children. 'We don't know what they are looking for, they never find anything.'
Despite the relentless threats and violence, when asked if he would move, he shook his head and said: 'I will continue to live here, this is my land, this is my home, my future.'
Illegal actions given legitimacy
A report in December by Peace Now and Kerem Navot, Israel-based rights groups, said that settlers, with the backing of the Israeli military and government, have seized 14 per cent of the West Bank through establishing outposts and driving Palestinian farming communities out.
Yonatan Mizrachi, the co-director of Settlement Watch at Peace Now, said the levels of settler violence that has been seen since Oct 7 'cannot happen without government support, indirectly or directly', and the [coalition's decision not to enforce the law'.
'The settlers right now feel strong and that their illegal actions have been given legitimacy by the government,' he added.
Israel Police confirmed it had received reports from residents of an arson attack near the church and said a 'thorough investigation' would be carried out.
'If arson is confirmed, justice will be pursued regardless of race or background,' a statement said.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement: 'Contrary to claims regarding the arson of a church in the village area, such incidents are not known to the IDF. Fires near the church are known and were extinguished by Israeli civilians.'
It confirmed it had received reports of fires being set in an open area near Taybeh on July 8 and several suspects setting fire to land on July 11. In the latter incident, the IDF said it dispatched forces but 'found no suspects in the act of arson'.
It added: 'Regarding the question of military presence around the village, the IDF operates continuously in Judea and Samaria against terrorist activity and to improve the security of all area residents.'