Washington Post report: Israeli government shows limited concern as Holy Land Christians face rising attacks

Christians in Israel and Palestine are facing a growing wave of harassment, vandalism, and violence from Jewish extremists, and attackers appear to have become even more ruthless because of a limited response from Israeli political leaders, according to a July 5 report from Gerry Shih, the Washington Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief. 

Shih detailed a pattern of attacks on Christian clergy, holy sites, and Christian communities in the Holy Land. 

Attacks on clergy and holy sites

Shih first pointed to an April incident in a quiet alleyway near Jerusalem’s Mount Zion, near the room where Christians believe Jesus Christ held the Last Supper and near Dormition Abbey, where many believe the Virgin Mary slept before being taken to heaven. 

As Zeale News previously reported, a man was arrested after he allegedly threw a French Catholic nun to the ground and aggressively kicked her as she lay on the ground. The assault took place in broad daylight and was recorded on security cameras. According to the Post, the perpetrator was an Israeli Jewish man from the West Bank, and Israeli police attributed the attack to “religious hostility.” 

Nikodemus Schnabel, the abbot of Dormition Abbey, which the nun had visited before the attack, told the Post that the assault was not an isolated incident. Christians today, he said, are often “hit, spit at, beaten.” 

“There was a video in this case, but you can be sure there are so, so many undocumented things,” he said, according to the outlet. “Believe me, this is not the case of one lost soul.”

The number of reported attacks against Christians in Jerusalem nearly doubled from 2023 to 2025 and is on track to reach a new high this year, according to the Rossing Center, an interreligious organization cited by the Post. 

After the attack, the Israeli Foreign Ministry called the assault a “shameless act” that violated Israel’s values of “respect, coexistence, and freedom of religion.” Netanyahu’s office did not comment at the time but later told the Post that the government has “made it clear that any acts of violence and vandalism of this type will not be tolerated,” according to the report.

Christian leaders warn of exodus from Holy Land, especially in last all-Christian town of Taybeh

Several Catholics and Christian leaders have repeatedly spoken out against the violence and warned that continued hostility is accelerating Christian emigration from the Holy Land. Some have said the trend could eventually erase the Christian presence from the land where Christ was born, crucified, died, and rose from the dead. 

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Francesco Ielpo, the custodian of the Holy Land and a senior Vatican official in Jerusalem, told the Post that fear and hopelessness are pushing Christians to leave. 

“The general atmosphere is this: Many people are afraid,” Ielpo said. “I can give good works and health assistance. I can give good schools. But all this is not enough. You need hope to remain.”

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Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics says the Christian population in Israel and Jerusalem rose by about 1% annually to 184,200 at the end of 2025, or 1.9% of the country’s population. But according to the Post, official figures overstate the stability of the Christian community because many Christians counted in the census live abroad. 

The pressure is especially acute in Taybeh, the last predominantly Christian town in the West Bank, which the Gospel reveals once gave refuge to Jesus and his disciples. Local officials and residents told the Post that armed Jewish settlers have seized land, blocked farmers from harvesting olive groves, damaged businesses, and threatened residents to leave — claims Christians in the community previously described to Zeale News. 

>> Israeli settlers again attack last all-Christian village in the West Bank <<

Taybeh Mayor Suleiman Khouriyeh said the settlers seized land on his four-acre olive grove and fenced it off, blocking him from harvesting the land, according to the Post. The outlet reported that a local businessman was similarly forced to halt hotel construction because of settler attacks.

Another resident, Roland Bassir, said settlers repeatedly targeted his cement factory, destroying machinery, vandalizing cars, and firing rifles into the air. The Post reported that the harassment began after Jewish settlers placed a single tent on a hilltop near his business in 2023. The outpost later expanded into several trailers and a small farm, and settlers began bringing cattle onto the factory grounds and forcing Bassir’s workers to leave during the workday. 

Bassir said he has lost more than $100,000 he put into the business, laid off nearly all of his 45 employees, and applied for a U.S. visa.

“If I get it, I will leave tomorrow,” Bassir told the Post. “There is no future. Every day I think it might be my last day here, because I might be killed.”

Bassir’s plan to leave represents a larger pattern. According to the Post, Khouriyeh said 10 extended families have left Taybeh in the past decade for the U.S., Latin America, and Spain — a major loss for the Christian town of about 1,500 residents. He said the Christian community is watching Israel take control of more land while Western governments fail to protect them.

“We have the oldest holy sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity,” Khouriyeh said recently while speaking to municipal employees, according to the Post. “But what is the value of an empty church without Christians?

Ben Gvir’s role in Israeli government draws scrutiny

Shih also cited social media posts showing Israeli soldiers smashing Christian icons and defacing churches in Lebanon and remarked that these attacks have added to a growing “sense that animosity toward Christians is being normalized” under Netanyahu’s government.

He particularly highlighted the role of Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has defended anti-Christian harassment. As Zeale News previously reported, Ben Gvir — who now leads Israeli law enforcement in his government role — was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism against Arabs and support for a terrorist organization designated by both Israel and the U.S.

In a 2017 radio interview, before entering government, Ben Gvir defended spitting at Christian monks and churches as “an ancient Jewish tradition” and said he did not believe the action “represents any violation,” the Post reported. 

Ben Gvir has also faced criticism during his time in Netanyahu’s government for his aggressive rhetoric regarding Israeli military operations in Lebanon and in Iran and stances on other actions of the government. In a June 19 X post, Ben Gvir said “all of Lebanon must burn,” and added that he had told Netanyahu that “for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” as Zeale News reported.

Concern spreads among American Christians

The report also noted growing concern among American Christians, including some evangelicals, who have traditionally represented one of Israel’s most supportive bases. 

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Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told the Post that attacks on Christians could alienate some of Israel’s strongest supporters in the U.S. 

“The violence against Christians and the [Israeli] political figures who encourage it are bad enough that something needs to be done about them,” he said. “But it’s also important to pay attention to the way it alienates Israel’s friends and provides tools for Israel’s detractors.”

According to Shih, Sasson-Gordis noted that in recent months, Christian conservatives have questioned Vice President JD Vance at public events about Israel’s treatment of Christians and several Christian conservative commentators have also begun frequently citing reports of attacks and harassment against Christians in the Holy Land.

Yisca Harani, founder of the Religious Freedom Data Center — which runs a hotline for reporting anti-Christian attacks in Jerusalem — told the Post that she has noticed an increasing anti-Christian sentiment among Israeli youths. Harani said her group now organizes about 100 Jewish volunteers to accompany Christian nuns when they leave their homes in Jerusalem. Since the spring attack, she said, nuns have requested protection every day. 

Harani blamed part of the anti-Christian problem on education and rhetoric that promotes Jewish supremacy and suspicion of non-Jews, according to the Post. 

“Half of Israel is greatly affected by the rhetoric of Jewish supremacy and Jewish exclusivity,” Harani said, the Post reported. “What can only be the outcome if in school they say: ‘All gentiles want your annihilation, remember what the Christians did, remember what Hamas did.’ People therefore look at the world through glasses of fear, estrangement and, finally, animosity.”

Abbot Schnabel said the atmosphere for Christians has changed sharply since he first came to Israel in 2003. At the time, he said, the government promoted the country as a destination for Christian pilgrims and he felt welcomed as a young Benedictine monk.

“But over the years,” Shih reported, “the occasional curses that Schnabel encountered in dark alleys became spitting and open confrontations in broad daylight.”

Explaining what changed, Abbot Schnabel gave a two-word answer: “The government,” according to the Post.

Shih closed his report by recalling a 2015 attack in which Jewish extremists set fire to the Church of the Multiplication, where Christians believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves. Abbot Schnabel said one detail from the trial remains with him today: The attorney who defended the Jewish extremists accused of terrorism was Ben Gvir.