Settlers seize Palestinian home as Israeli forces close roads across West Bank

A U.S.-based Catholic human rights group issued an urgent alert July 27 after Israeli settlers forced a Palestinian family from their home near Nablus and occupied the property, while Israeli military closures and raids compounded the crisis across the West Bank.

The family of Mahmoud al-Tubasi left their home in Jalud July 22, two days before the military crackdown. The Vulnerable People Project (VPP) said settlers had subjected the family to months of harassment, intensified a blockade for more than two weeks, and cut electricity and access to food, water, and medicine. 

The Israeli military said settlers entered after the family had left and that forces were working to enable a safe return.

“This is not the chaos of conflict; it is a method,” VPP founder Jason Jones said. “Cut the water, cut the power, block the press, seize the house.”

The crackdown followed a July 24 confrontation in Tell, southwest of Nablus, that killed four Palestinians and two Israelis. The Israeli military said a Palestinian seized an Israeli’s weapon and opened fire; Palestinian officials said armed settlers had attacked or attempted to enter homes. Reuters reported that Israeli forces subsequently blocked roads across the West Bank, raided Palestinian communities, and detained dozens of people.

Church officials decry settler violence, Israeli role

Vatican News, the Holy See’s official news portal, published a searing warning July 26 from Franciscan Father Ibrahim Faltas, head of schools for the Custody of the Holy Land, describing relentless violence, displacement, and restrictions across the West Bank.

“The West Bank is burning, bleeding, crying out in pain and suffering,” Father Faltas wrote.

The priest described Palestinian communities as physically and socially fragmented by violence, settlements, checkpoints, and temporary roadblocks. People are unable to travel between nearby cities for medical treatment, work, care of relatives, or the defense of family property, he said.

According to Father Faltas, the number of checkpoints and other fixed barriers has climbed above 1,000, with additional temporary roadblocks appearing throughout the West Bank. Settlements now surround villages and “suffocate” Palestinian community life, while repeated settler raids have left families terrified even inside their homes.

Father Faltas characterized the conditions as an “unofficial war” in which homes and farmland are burned, property is seized, and residents struggle to obtain help.

He directed his appeal both to those committing the violence and to “those who fail to intervene,” arguing that Pope Leo XIV’s repeated calls for peace must be heard by perpetrators and authorities alike.

That same day, Pope Leo said after the Sunday Angelus that he was following the “ongoing and escalating violence” in the Holy Land with deep concern.

As Zeale News reported, the Pope lamented the latest civilian victims in the West Bank and Gaza and called for negotiations toward a just political settlement founded on the equal dignity and rights of every person.

Pope Leo also urged leaders to reject further military action and unilateral decisions, particularly those affecting the status quo of religious holy places, and to reopen dialogue and diplomacy.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 1,330 settler attacks resulting in casualties, property damage, or both across 250 Palestinian communities since the beginning of 2026 – an average of more than six incidents per day.

By July 20, 18 Palestinians had been killed in incidents linked to settler attacks, already surpassing the 17 fatalities recorded during all of 2025. The U.N. attributed 12 of the deaths to settlers, three to Israeli forces, and three to incidents in which responsibility remained disputed.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told Vatican News in June that Palestinians in the West Bank effectively lack equal protection under the law. He described checkpoints, the destruction of trees, blocked access to farmland, assaults, theft, and insults as everyday occurrences.

Cardinal Pizzaballa said Church representatives frequently call the Israeli military seeking protection from settlers, only to find that the settlers have departed before troops arrive and that the military response is then directed against Palestinians.

The cardinal has also warned that expanding settlements could create a permanent occupation without the rule of law.

The danger is particularly acute in Taybeh, whose Christian community traces its presence to the earliest centuries of the Church.

As Zeale News previously reported, settlers set Taybeh’s agricultural land ablaze and threw Molotov cocktails toward homes in June, according to residents and journalists on the ground. Earlier incidents included the seizure of the village quarry, the installation of an iron gate at the town entrance, and the establishment of a settler outpost near Christian homes.

Father Bashar Fawadleh, the Latin parish priest in Taybeh, told Vatican News that the new outpost could cut farmers off from their land and pressure Christian families to leave.

The priest called for concrete international action to preserve the Holy Land’s living Christian presence.

Father Faltas closed his appeal with hope, insisting that those who trust in God cannot abandon the belief that history can still change direction.