Taybeh Priest Warns UK MPs of Settler-Driven Exodus
Radical settler attacks—burning land, blocking harvests, menacing homes—have pushed 16 families from Taybeh, the West Bank's last wholly Christian village.
Father Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Taybeh—the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank—told British parliamentarians and journalists that repeated attacks by radical settlers have forced 16 Christian families to leave in the past three years.
Speaking at a press conference on October 28 during a visit to the United Kingdom at the invitation of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, the priest said his people ask only for “basic rights, to live in security and safety.” He described how residents in the eastern part of the village face arson against land and cars, settlers driving cows and sheep onto cultivated fields, and obstruction of the olive harvest, a mainstay of local livelihood. Homes and visiting diplomatic delegations have also been targeted.
A Community Under Pressure
Taybeh remains a rare Christian stronghold in a region where the faithful have dwindled under economic strain, political insecurity, and violence. Father Fawadleh’s testimony framed the exodus not as distant geopolitics but as the daily erosion of a parish’s ability to stay on its ancestral land. Olive groves, once a sign of rootedness and continuity, are now contested ground; when harvests are blocked, families lose both income and the means to remain.
The priest’s UK engagements were intended to raise awareness among Catholics and public officials of the concrete threats facing Palestinian Christians. He stressed that the community seeks protection so that ordinary life—worship, work, and family—can continue without fear.
Faith, Land, and the Call for Safety
For Catholics attentive to the Holy Land, Taybeh’s ordeal illustrates a wider pattern: an ancient Christian presence reduced by insecurity that spares neither churches nor homes. The Church has long insisted on the right of local Christians to live in peace on their land and to practice their faith freely. Father Fawadleh’s appeal places that teaching in the present: without security, the last Christian village empties family by family.
There was no comprehensive official response from Israeli authorities or settler representatives. What stands clear is the priest’s witness: sixteen households gone, fields burned or overrun, and a parish asking simply to remain in safety. The Order of the Holy Sepulchre’s invitation underscored the solidarity of the universal Church with communities that still keep the faith where Christ walked.