By Roberto Cetera 

Violence by Jewish settlers in Palestine has now also struck the residents of Taibeh, the only entirely Christian Palestinian village. Taibeh is the ancient Ephraim, the location mentioned in the Gospel of John where Jesus took refuge after the resurrection of Lazarus (Jn 11:54), and where the Christian community has extremely ancient roots.

The village is home to three churches—Latin, Greek Orthodox, and Melkite—whose pastors, Fathers Bashar Fawadleh, Jack Nobel Abed, and Daoud Khoury, issued an appeal last night calling on Israeli authorities to prevent further settler violence, which so far has largely occurred in the presence of passive Israeli soldiers.

The attack on Taibeh

Yesterday, a group of Jewish settlers set fires near the Byzantine Christian cemetery and at the Church of Al-Khader (St. George), dating back to the 5th century and one of the oldest and most venerated places of worship for Christians in Palestine. These arson attacks follow a series of violent acts against the town’s Christian residents, which have been escalating in recent weeks. The settlers have also damaged olive groves—Taibeh’s primary source of income—and are preventing farmers from accessing and working their land.

Appeal to the International Community

The eastern part of the town, the three priests lament, “has become an open target for illegal Jewish settlement outposts that are quietly expanding under the protection of the Israeli army.” The priests are calling on the international and Church communities to send missions to the area to document the damages and the progressive deterioration of the situation.

Settler violence

In recent weeks, settler terrorism has targeted not only Taibeh but also several other Palestinian villages near illegal settlements, such as Ein Samia and Kufr Malik, where settlers have set fire to homes, vehicles, and crops. At the end of June, four young Palestinians trying to resist the violence were brutally killed. In Ein Samia, located along the Jordan Valley, settlers attacked and destroyed the local aqueduct—the spring that, through a Roman-era canal system, still provides water to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, all the way to Ramallah.

Risk of new land confiscations

Taibeh is located in the central Ramallah highlands at 850 meters above sea level, where both the lights of Jerusalem and Jordan’s Al-Salt mountains are visible at night. The Christian residents of Taibeh live peacefully alongside Muslims from neighbouring villages. 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. Hundreds more hectares of Palestinian land are at risk of confiscation to further expand settlements.

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.

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