Israeli settlers launched another attack on the West Bank town of Taybeh early Monday morning. Drop Site News, citing Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan, reported that, around 2:30 AM local time, settlers raided the village, where they torched multiple vehicles, threw stones at residents’ homes, and sprayed graffiti on buildings. No casualties were reported. Taybeh, which is located 11 miles northeast of Ramallah, is the only town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank inhabited exclusively by Christians.
This latest attack came just three weeks after settlers raided the village and started a series of fires near the fifth-century Church of Saint George. The raid prompted a visit from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist, who later issued a statement calling the attack an “act of terror” and an “absolute travesty.” He added that those responsible should “be found and be prosecuted.”
Last month, settlers constructed an outpost atop a “vital agricultural zone” along the outskirts of Taybeh. Since then, they have caused extensive damage to the local olive tree groves and allowed their livestock to graze on land belonging to the villagers. They have also barred the Palestinian population from accessing the confiscated land and attacked those who have attempted to do so. Ten families have already left Taybeh due to settler violence.
Two weeks ago, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III led a delegation of church leaders to Taybeh, where they met with diplomats representing over twenty countries. The U.S. was supposed to send a delegation but canceled its participation without explaining why.
“The attacks by the hands of settlers against our community, which is living in peace, must stop, both here in Taybeh and elsewhere throughout the West Bank. This is clearly part of the systematic attacks against Christians that we see unfolding throughout the region,” the Council of Patriarchs and Heads of Churches of the Holy Land said in a statement.
