A group of extremist Israeli settlers allegedly launched another attack on the Christian village of Taybeh in the West Bank at approximately 2 a.m. local time July 28, throwing stones at several homes and attempting to set one on fire, Jerusalem-based Vatican News journalist Roberto Cetera reported.
No injuries have been reported. The settlers, who identify themselves as the “Hilltop Youth,” broke into the village, attacking the homes, as well “scrawling threatening messages in Hebrew on walls, and torching three vehicles,” Cetera reported July 28.
The settlers fled after young Palestinians came out of their homes to protect their families and livestock, according to Cetera.
“Israeli soldiers, tasked with protecting civilians, arrived more than an hour later,” he noted.
The “Hilltop Youth” are reportedly led by extremist Neria Ben Pazi, who has been accused of attacking villages in the region for several years. The Council of the European Union announced sanctions against Ben Pazi in April 2024, stating that he “has been accused of repeatedly attacking Palestinians in Wadi Seeq and in Deir Jarir since 2021.”
According to a May 2024 press release from the United Kingdom government website, Ben Pazi illegally constructed three outposts between 2015 and 2023 and “has supported and participated in acts of violence and displacement of Bedouin and Palestinian communities in the West Bank.”
CatholicVote previously reported that the village suffered several attacks in May and June, according to village resident Nadim Khoury. Settlers also previously attacked Taybeh by setting fire near the historic Church of Saint George and the town’s cemetery July 7, prompting US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to visit the town the following week. Huckabee subsequently denounced the desecration of any church, mosque, or synagogue as “a crime against humanity & God” and said the attacks in Taybeh are “an absolute travesty.”
“There should be consequences, and it should be harsh consequences because it is one of the last bastions of our civilization, the places where we worship,” Huckabee said.
He called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.
“Not just reprimanded, that’s not enough,” Huckabee continued. “People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs, not just to other people, but that which belongs to God. That is a sacrilege. It’s against the Holy.”
In his Vatican News report, Cetera wrote that the July 28 attack on the village “seems to bear the mark of retaliation against the U.S. administration,” citing the recent visit from Huckabee.
Cetera also reported that the settlers’ violence is increasingly aimed directly at people, rather than at property, and that the attacks are not “exclusively anti-Christian,” but instead a broader goal.
“Rather, they are part of a broader campaign against the Palestinian population, affecting nearby Muslim communities as well,” Cetera wrote, noting that their intention “appears to be the gradual displacement of Palestinians from their land, Christians among them, given that the majority of Christian communities in the Holy Land are Palestinian.”
Calls for Israel and the international community to investigate the attacks and protect the Christian minority in the Holy Land continue to mount, including from the three priests of Taybeh.
“We believe that the Holy Land cannot remain alive without its indigenous people,” the priests said in a letter July 8. “Forcibly removing farmers from their land, threatening their churches, and encircling their towns is a wound to the living heart of this nation. Yet we remain steadfast in our shared faith and hope that truth and justice will ultimately prevail.”