Following weeks of settler attacks on the last entirely Christian village in Palestine, the Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, Fr. Ibrahim Faltas, makes an impassioned plea for peace.
By Fr. Ibrahim Faltas (Vatican News)
On Monday, July 14, the heads of the Christian Churches of the Holy Land, together with ambassadors and consuls, came to express their closeness and solidarity with the residents and clergy of Taybeh, who for weeks have been facing severe attacks by hundreds of Israeli settlers. These settlers are violently trying to seize their homes and lands.
There have been deaths in the area. Many have been injured. People have been forced from their homes. Buildings have been demolished. Fields set on fire. These are cowardly attacks against unarmed civilians—people who for hundreds of years have remained faithful to the religion of their ancestors in a land that still holds the traditions of Jesus’ time.
The Holy Land is suffering—in each of its inhabitants, in every piece of desecrated land, in the violence that continues to wound it. In Gaza, the massacre goes on. People die while waiting in line, humiliated just for asking for food. Children die simply for approaching “Sister Water,” a source of life and comfort for all.
In the West Bank, particularly in Bethlehem, daily life is becoming unbearable. Local Christians are being forced to leave their homeland in search of safety and work abroad. They long to remain in their homes, to preserve their identity as a people of faith. But the constant harassment and unrelenting settler attacks, carried out with impunity, along with ever-tightening restrictions on movement, make that impossible.
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