A senior Palestinian church affairs committee on Tuesday condemned the demolition of a Christian family’s home and the bulldozing of its farmland by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank.
The Presidential Higher Committee for Church Affairs said in a statement that Israeli forces demolished a home and razed agricultural land belonging to the Christian Abed family in the al-Saqi area of Birzeit, north of Ramallah.
In a separate incident, the Christian family of Bashir Naim Kouna was forced to leave its home in the village of Taybeh, east of Ramallah, following persistent threats and attacks by illegal Israeli settlers, the committee added.
The family had moved into the house only about a week earlier after spending more than $300,000 building and furnishing it over seven years, according to the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights.
The group said the house had all required municipal permits.
The church affairs committee described the demolition, land razing, and displacement as violations of international law and part of a policy aimed at seizing Palestinian land and imposing illegal settlement expansion by force.
It said attacks on the homes and lands of Palestinian Christians amount to “an attack on the entire Palestinian presence,” stressing that Christians are an integral part of the Palestinian people, history, and identity.
The committee said demolitions, land seizures, and forced displacement continue across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, Masafer Yatta, the Jordan Valley, and the governorates of Nablus, Bethlehem, and Ramallah, as well as in Gaza.
It called on the international community to halt the violations and hold those responsible accountable.
Taybeh is the only remaining Palestinian town whose population is entirely Christian.
On August 11, the committee warned that Israeli attacks on Christian communities are threatening their deeply rooted presence in Palestine.
It said the assaults are “no longer isolated incidents” but part of an ongoing pattern involving settler violence, land confiscation, illegal settlement expansion, and restrictions on freedom of worship.
The committee also warned that Taybeh’s population is falling as growing numbers of Christian families had been forced to leave Palestine since 2023 amid escalating Israeli attacks.
Like other Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank, Taybeh has faced escalating attacks by illegal Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, aimed at pressuring them to leave their land, particularly in areas adjacent to illegal settlements and settlement outposts.
