Why Catholics Need to Support the Palestinian Faithful

As the world’s focus is on the war on Gaza, Christians are facing persecution in the occupied West Bank by the state of Israel and illegal settlers, as Donovan Roebert explains.

Under cover of the brutal war in Gaza, Israel has been accelerating its illegal settlement activities in the Occupied West Bank. New invasive settler outposts are being established throughout the territory, and with these comes the threat of harassment and forced eviction of Palestinian landowners who have been present on their lands for generations, including Christians.

On July 31, the Christian Kisiya family was forcefully evicted from their home and land in the largely Christian Al Makhrour Valley, adjacent to Bethlehem, by a group of aggressive settlers from a nearby outpost.

Israeli police and soldiers, instead of defending the family’s rights, sided with the settlers, as they regularly do, and allowed them to break down the Kisiya’s gate, enter the property, and sit down to eat at the Kisiya’s garden table. The settlers have remained on the family’s land since that date.

The Kisiya family home, and the restaurant by which they earn their livelihood, have been repeatedly demolished under orders from the Israeli state apparatus, and have been peremptorily demolished again this year.

The family then erected a tent near their land from which they began to campaign for the return of their home, together with local Israeli and other peace activists. The Israeli response was to arrest Alice Kisiya, the family’s daughter, hold her in detention overnight, and release her on stringent bail conditions the next day.

She returned to the family tent outside her home to continue the campaign. Within days, the IDF returned, evicted the family from the tent, and demolished it. The settlers remain on the family’s land.

This kind of eviction and brutalisation is typical practice, and the wider Christian community of Al Makhrour is now under imminent threat of further displacement, resulting in the elimination of the largest remaining Christian community in Bethlehem.

Intensifying persecution of Christians, ongoing in fact since 1948, has been documented both in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Christian targets in Gaza

In Gaza itself, 33 Christians have been killed within the confines of their church buildings, where they were taking refuge. The Orthodox St Porphyrius church was bombed, killing 18 parishioners, including children. It was recently struck again, injuring two parish girls.

The Catholic Holy Family complex was also hit, with three of its parishioners killed, two of them women returning to the church from the complex restrooms. They were deliberately targeted by Israeli snipers.

The Anglican-administered Al Ahli Hospital was severely bombarded near the outbreak of the war, killing hundreds. It was later subjected to multiple evacuations of patients and medical staff. Its ambulance was struck by a missile while in transit, and one of its theatre nurses killed together with her daughter. It was recently struck again, forcing yet another evacuation.

In Jerusalem itself, despite protests from the Orthodox Patriarchate, traditional Christian festivals are being hindered and obstructed, an interference that now amounts to de facto prohibition.

Layan Nasir, the 23-year-old daughter of the Anglican churchwarden in Birzeit in the Occupied West Bank, was arrested some months ago without charge or due process. IDF soldiers entered their home in the early morning hours, held the mother at gunpoint, and led Layan away blindfolded and cuffed.

She remains in Damon Prison under awful conditions, and the Israeli response to pleas on her behalf from the archbishop of Canterbury was to extend her arbitrary imprisonment for the further 45 days. These extensions, ordered by military court judges, can be repeated indefinitely.

To mark the funeral of the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Melkite Catholic Al Jazeera journalist, shot dead by an IDF soldier on May 11, 2022, the bells of all the churches in Jerusalem rang out in her honour. IFD soldiers showed their contempt for her family and friends by attacking her funeral cortege, and almost upsetting her coffin.

Persecution of Christians

Persecution of Palestinian Christians has long been an invisible Israeli practice. The threat to the Christian community of Al Makhrour is only its latest manifestation. Unless the Church is prepared to stand with its brothers and sisters in the Faith, in solidarity and concrete support, these Christians may be displaced altogether within the next few years.

South African religious and lay leaders interested in supporting the Kisiya family and the larger Al Makhrour community can email this writer at

In addition, as part of the globalisation of the Kisiya family campaign, local church parishes are asked to dedicate Sunday Masses on September 29 to the Kisiya family and the larger struggle to safeguard the homes and lands of Christians and Muslims in the Al Makhrour Valley.

Their hope lies entirely in the extent of our Christian support.