Last Christian Town In West Bank Attacked And Besieged By Israeli Settlers
The last entirely-Christian town in the Israeli-controlled West Bank is enduring a wave of attacks by violent Jewish settlers, a local church leader says, prompting families to flee and leading clergy to declare the town is “no longer safe” for its inhabitants. Ominously, settlers have also set up an “outpost” on the fringe of that town — Taybeh, Ramallah — a 4,500-year-old community with huge significance in the story of Jesus Christ.
“The town, which the Gospel of John (11:54) refers to as ‘Ephraim’ — the place Jesus withdrew to before his passion — is no longer safe for its people today,” Father Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Taybeh’s Church of Christ the Redeemer, told the Catholic, Arabic-language ACI MENA news service. “We do not live in peace but in daily fear and siege…Since last October, more than 10 families have left Taybeh due to fear from ongoing violence and harassment.”
This and other videos embedded below are circulating on social media, purportedly capturing the settlers’ latest attacks on Taybeh this week (BBC confirms an attack took place on Wednesday):