Taybeh’s parish priest raises the alarm about the increasing violence by pro-occupation groups, backed by Israeli authorities. For the clergyman, people live "without security or protection". Palestinians are being attacked, driven from their homes, their land seized. The last two extremists arrested in connection with the Kafr Malik raids and the attack on the IDF base have been released.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – “We lead a life without security or protection,” said Fr Bashar Fawadleh, speaking to AsiaNews. The clergyman serves as a parish priest in Taybeh, a West Bank village of about 1,500 people with three churches, 30 km north of Jerusalem and east of Ramallah.

Known as the last Palestinian village inhabited entirely by Christians, its population consists of more than 600 Latin Catholics, while the rest are Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Melkites.

Last week Jewish settlers attacked it by breaking and entering into homes and setting them on fire. More violent attacks were reported this week.

“We are victims of daily provocations and assaults,” said the clergyman, a Jerusalem native. In particular, the latest cases of “provocative actions” (pictured) are the work of an “armed settler” who has taken to “grazing cows among the homes in Taybeh.”

“A few days ago, he drove away a man from his home, which he was building in Area B, within Taybeh limits. There are many images and videos that show the settler who never stops terrorising the residents of the area” with his actions.

The latest wave of violence began well before 7 October 2023 and Hamas’s attack on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza, and has not spared Christian assets and properties.

However, the Gaza war and the 12-day war with Iran have overshadowed the daily attacks in the West Bank, leaving the field open to settlers and extremists who now operate with total impunity, if not with the collusion of the authorities.

Last week, over 100 people attacked Kafr Malik, a Palestinian village near Ramallah, causing the death of three people. According to Yesh Din, an Israeli NGO, the violence took place in the presence of Israeli soldiers, who opened fire on unarmed Palestinians who had gathered at the entrance to the village to protect it.

As evidence of the free hand given to settlers and radical groups, the last two suspects in the Kafr Malik attack, which saw heavy clashes with Israeli troops, were also released.

Subsequently, a group of extremists attacked a regional military base in central West Bank, with such violence and brutality that it sparked even the condemnation from government officials and pro-occupation ministers.

During the attack, a reservist commander was accused of being a “traitor,” and settlers tried to run over soldiers, vandalised military vehicles, threw Molotov cocktails, and slashed tyres.

A military base near Ramallah was also targeted, with the attackers setting fire to computers, equipment and vehicles, spray-painting graffiti in Hebrew.

An investigation has been opened, but the public prosecutor is struggling to formulate a charge while the six people arrested have all been released from prison, the last two yesterday placed under house arrest.

Observers note that paramilitary groups linked to the settlers are now part of an Israeli  “strategy” to take over Palestinian land in the West Bank. In some cases, settler militias operate with the support of political leaders.

One of the latest incidents occurred on Wednesday, when young Israelis broke into a Palestinian home in the Jordan Valley and chased away the family who lived there.

Pictures from the village of Mu’arajat al-Sharqiya show settlers relaxing and smoking outside the home after the family fled. The attackers reportedly stole cash and an air conditioner, according to Looking the Occupation in the Eye, an Israeli activist NGO.

Elsewhere in the village, settlers took over an unoccupied house and stayed there through the night and into the next morning.

Mu’arajat is a small hamlet on the edge of the valley, one of the few remaining rural Palestinian communities between Ramallah and Jericho; over the past two years, most of the approximately 1,000 residents of the area’s herding communities have fled or been forcibly displaced by settlers.

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