Tensions in East Jerusalem and the wider West Bank are ongoing despite the Gaza ceasefire framework being pursued by the Trump administration, and local Christians continue to report Israeli settler attacks, settlement expansions, and military operations in the area.
In December 2025, Israel’s cabinet announced the legalization of 19 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. According to Reuters, Israel’s decision covered both newly established settlements and older outposts, including two that Israel had evacuated in 2005 under a previous disengagement plan.
The settlements are widely regarded as illegal under international law, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory.
Israeli authorities also approved 764 housing units in three existing settlements — Hashmonaim, Beitar Illit, and Givat Ze'ev — bringing total approvals since late 2022 to more than 51,000, Reuters reported.
As CatholicVote previously reported, church leaders have spoken out against the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank, saying it contributes to Palestinian displacement and threatens the livelihood of Christian communities.
Pope Leo XIV, in a Jan. 9 address to Vatican diplomats, warned that civilians in the Holy Land continue to face a grave humanitarian crisis. He reaffirmed the Holy See’s support for a two-state solution, which he said “remains the institutional perspective for meeting the legitimate aspirations for both peoples.”
“Yet sadly,” the Holy Father continued, “there has been an increase in violence in the West Bank against the Palestinian civilian population, which has the right to live in peace in its own land.”
The Vulnerable People’s Project (VPP), an American-based Catholic apostolate with operations in both Gaza and the West Bank, issued an alert Jan. 20 that eyewitnesses and local sources in Bethlehem had observed Israeli military forces gathering around the Church of the Nativity.
“The incident has heightened fears among Bethlehem’s residents, particularly its historic Christian community, that escalating military pressure around sacred and civic spaces is part of a broader strategy to normalize coercion, restrict movement, and suppress dissent in the city,” the group said.
A December 2025 report by the Council of Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, titled “Issues Facing Christians in the Holy Land,” assessed conditions facing Christians throughout 2025. The World Council of Churches circulated the report.
Church leaders cited escalating violence, economic hardship, and restrictions on worship, warning that continued attacks by radical Jewish settlers against Palestinians threaten Christian heritage in the Holy Land. The report added that roughly half of Gaza’s religious and cultural sites have been damaged or destroyed.
The report also documented attacks over the summer in Taybeh, the West Bank’s last all-Christian town, and described settler incursions that have restricted the indigenous Christian community’s access to its farmland. According to the report, Israeli settlers had also begun encroaching on the Monastery of St. Gerasimos near Jericho.
Such incidents, the church leaders warned, have “rendered some olive groves inaccessible and damaged crops, seeking to cripple the local economy of Christians.”
Disputes over municipal taxation, known as arnona, are placing mounting financial pressure on Church institutions, the leaders warned. They said Israeli authorities “have been demanding that the Churches pay arnona for ecclesial buildings” — including schools and ministries that serve the wider public — a practice they said “violat[es] treaties and agreements that span centuries.”
Summarizing their findings, the church leaders called for international action to support and sustain the ceasefire in Gaza and to protect Christian communities from ongoing violence.
They wrote, “Threats to Christian heritage – particularly in Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza alongside issues of unjustified taxation – are the source of ongoing concerns that threaten the existence of the community and the churches.”
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