Church and diplomatic voices condemn escalating Israeli aggression in West Bank

Department of Research, Studies and International News 15-07-2025

A coalition of high-ranking church officials and diplomats from over 20 nations has condemned the intensifying wave of violent attacks carried out by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank. Their statements come amid a broader surge of settler and military aggression that continues to devastate Palestinian communities across the region.

The delegation, which included representatives from China, Russia, Jordan, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, visited Taybeh, a historically Christian village, to express solidarity with the local population and to demand accountability for the rising settler violence. Among the notable voices were Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, both of whom strongly denounced recent attacks by Israeli settlers, including the deliberate burning of land near the revered Church of St. George.

“These attacks are not random,” declared Theophilos III. “They are systematic, calculated, and deliberately aimed at uprooting Christian Palestinians from their ancestral lands.” The church leaders emphasized that local emergency calls for help were ignored by Israeli authorities, whose longstanding complicity in settler actions is now under heightened scrutiny.

In a joint statement, the church patriarchs in Jerusalem called for an immediate and transparent investigation. They directly accused the Israeli government of enabling settler violence, citing the impunity with which armed settlers operate and the military protection often extended to them during raids on Palestinian villages.

Settler attacks in the area have included setting homes ablaze, desecrating agricultural lands, and intimidating residents with threats of expulsion. “They even brought their livestock to graze on private Palestinian farmland, as if to assert dominance,” a local priest reported. “They put up a sign that read: ‘There is no future for you here.’ That is not just a threat, it’s a policy.”

Nida Ibrahim described the ongoing violence as part of a “targeted campaign” aimed at dismantling the Christian presence in Palestine. With roughly 50,000 Christian Palestinians remaining in the West Bank, their cultural and historical legacy is now under siege. “They are being driven out not just because of their faith, but because they are Palestinian,” Ibrahim stated.

For decades, the churches in Palestine have worked to strengthen the Christian community’s presence, particularly in areas like Taybeh, where deep roots run through centuries of history. Now, that presence is being pushed to the brink by settler encroachment, land seizures, and the utter absence of legal protection.

Patriarch Pizzaballa, Jerusalem’s highest Catholic authority, described the situation in the West Bank as “lawless,” where “the only ruling force is that of power, not justice.” He called on international actors to pressure Israeli authorities to reinstate the rule of law and protect all communities equally. “The West Bank must not become a space where armed settlers dictate the future through violence.”

Monday’s diplomatic and religious visit to Taybeh came on the heels of multiple new assaults. In Bethlehem’s southeastern village of al-Maniya, Israeli settlers uprooted around 1,500 olive trees, some of them decades old, belonging to Palestinian families. The settlers erected tents to establish outposts while the Israeli army simultaneously demolished a four-story residential building in the area.

Zayed Kawazba, head of the local village council, condemned the destruction and accused settlers of attempting to annex more land under military cover. “This is not isolated. This is strategic, coordinated between settlers and the occupation forces,” he told the Wafa news agency.

Meanwhile, in Al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, mourners gathered for the funeral of two young Palestinians killed by settlers just days earlier. Their deaths added to a growing list of casualties in the occupied territories, where hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since October 2023, when Israel intensified its military aggression in the region under the guise of its war on Gaza.

The broader context reveals a deeply troubling reality: more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under a brutal military regime. Their towns are fractured by over a hundred illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and bypass roads designed to facilitate settler expansion and restrict Palestinian movement.

Despite international law deeming these settlements illegal, Israel has expanded them relentlessly, with over 500,000 settlers now living on stolen Palestinian land. The violence they perpetuate is not rogue behavior, it is symptomatic of a colonial system that operates with full political backing from the United States and other Western powers.

The voices raised this week in Taybeh represent not only a call for justice but a rejection of a status quo where the oppressed are blamed, and the oppressors are armed and emboldened. As China, Russia, and other just nations stand with the Palestinian people, the message from Taybeh echoes louder than ever: silence in the face of this injustice is complicity.