Taybeh , the West Bank ‘s fully Christian town and community
Church
Taybeh: West Bank Christian town under renewed settler incursion
Israeli settlers escalate their incursions into Taybeh, the West Bank’s last fully Christian town, raising concerns over further land appropriation. The parish priest, Father Bashar Fawadleh, appeals for international intervention, as residents face mounting restrictions and call for peace, justice, and protection.
Fear and attacks grip Taybeh, the last all-Christian town in the West Bank
Historic Taybeh, a Palestinian Christian town in the occupied West Bank, targeted by settlers in coordinated attacks.
A statue of the Virgin Mary in Taybeh, occupied West Bank [Al Jazeera]
14 Aug 2026
Taybeh, occupied West Bank – Underneath a painting of Jesus and his disciples, Sandra Basir brought out what she and her husband, Roland, now keep to protect their home: a couple of fire extinguishers.
They keep them because the last time Israeli settlers set fire to a neighbour’s car outside their house, no one else came. “Civil defence – when did they even show up? After everything was already over,” Roland says.
The couple’s nightly routine in their Palestinian Christian town is now similar to the majority-Muslim rural Palestinian communities besieged by settler attacks and nighttime military raids for years. Sandra checks the doors more than once before bed. They got a dog to stay outside to alert them of any trespassers. Sandra is, by her own description, always half-awake – listening for whoever might be coming for her four small children while they sleep.
Their seven-year-old son has stopped playing outside, Sandra says, and for months, the little boy told his father not to go to work – scared he might not return. “That’s what our life has become,” says Sandra, who was on the verge of tears throughout the conversation. “A child that age should just be playing.”
For more than 20 years, Roland built up a stone quarry and concrete-block factory on the edge of town, investing an estimated $5m in the business. After employing 40 local Palestinians, he has found his life’s work snatched by marauding settlers, both armed adults and some barely teenagers.
In the past three years – and with the situation deteriorating even more severely this past year – he and his workers were frequently chased off by settlers at gunpoint, with his quarry’s heavy-machinery equipment set on fire. The most brazen attack came in March, when Roland says some 30 to 40 settlers stormed the quarry site in a coordinated mass incursion. Videos and photos show them raising Israeli flags over the grounds and performing prayers on the land. Before leaving, they smashed his office, destroyed electrical panels, and pulled cameras from the walls.
Damage after a settler attack on Roland Basir’s quarry in the town of Taybeh in the West Bank [Courtesy of Roland Basir]
Roland documented everything on video, filed complaints with the liaison office, the police, and every institution he could reach. All his efforts to mobilise help to protect his land, however, were for naught. The settlers were back the next day, with their attacks continuing ever since.
Israeli settlers attack European diplomats and French mayor in West Bank, Belgium says
Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine was hospitalised after she was violently assaulted by Israeli settlers
18 Oct 2026, 14:38 | Updated: 53m ago
According to an October 17 post by Maxime Prevot, a number of people including the Belgian Consul General, French and Polish diplomats as well as Catholic representatives were attacked by Israeli settlers in the largely Christian city of Taybeh.
These attacks come days after Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine was hospitalised from a violent assault by Israeli settlers on her and Palestinians she was with.
The attack on Levine garnered international condemnation, including from the United States, with Marco Rubio calling it “disturbing”.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
![Damage after a settler attack on Roland Basir’s quarry in the town of Taybeh in the West Bank [Courtesy of Roland Basir]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Tanks-slashed-by-settlers-at-Rolands-factory-1-1786654242.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
You must be logged in to post a comment.