Jewish settlers attack Palestinian Christian village

July 10, 2025

Jewish settlers in the West Bank attacked the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh (Taibeh) and set fires near the cemetery and a fifth-century church. The priests of the village’s three churches—Latin-rite Catholic, Melkite Catholic, and Greek Orthodox—appealed to the international community for an “immediate and transparent investigation.”

The arson attacks “follow a series of violent acts against the town’s Christian residents, which have been escalating in recent weeks,” reported Roberto Cetera, the Vatican newspaper’s correspondent in the Holy Land. “The settlers have also damaged olive groves—Taibeh’s primary source of income—and are preventing farmers from accessing and working their land.”

Cetera added:

Their troubles began in 1977 when the Israeli government confiscated dozens of hectares of nearby land and illegally established a settlement called Rimonim. Large agricultural areas were taken from Taibeh’s farmers to build roads connecting various Jewish settlements. In the days leading up to yesterday’s attacks on Christian sites, settlers had already targeted the village outskirts, setting fire to a house and several cars.

In their joint statement, Fathers Daoud Khoury, Jacques-Noble Abed, and Bashar Fawadleh spoke of “a series of serious and repeated attacks against our city, threatening its security and stability and affecting the dignity of its inhabitants and its holy sites.”

“Had the residents not been vigilant and the intervention of the firefighters,” they continued, “a major catastrophe would have occurred. In a scene marked by daily provocations, the settlers continue to graze their cows on Taybeh’s farmland, amidst fields belonging to families in the city, and even near their homes, without any intervention or deterrence from the relevant authorities.”

Taybeh has thus “become an open target for the illegal settlers, who are quietly expanding under the protection of the [Israeli] army and serving as a springboard for further attacks on the land and people,” the priests added.

The Times of Israel reported that the arson attacks took place on July 7; the Vatican newspaper reported that they took place on July 8. Father Fawadleh told The Times of Israel that Father Abed “called the police emergency line twice” during the arson attacks “and was told that a police force was being dispatched, but no police officers arrived at the scene.”

Taybeh is the ancient village of Ephraim, mentioned in St. John’s Gospel (11:54). “The greatest concern of Taibeh-Ephraim’s Christian residents today is that—with global attention focused on the immense tragedy in Gaza—the increasingly serious threats to the survival of the world’s oldest Christian community may not be fully grasped by the international community,” wrote Cetera.

 

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Further information:

• I coloni ebrei attaccano gli abitanti di Taibeh in Cisgiordania (L'Osservatore Romano)
• West Bank: Jewish settlers attack Taibeh residents (Vatican News)
• ASIA/HOLY LAND - Israeli settlers attacks threaten the Christian village of Taybeh
• Taybeh church leaders condemn rising settler harassment, arson in West Bank town (Times of Israel)