The parish priest of one of the last Christian villages in Palestine has said that the town “must not vanish into silence” as it faces repeated incursions by Israeli settlers. Fr Bashar Fawadleh, speaking to Vatican News, called the situation in the village of Taybeh “deeply alarming”.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had closed the village, located in the West Bank, to “protect the citizens of the area and to maintain order”. In June, Israeli settlers prevented locals from putting out a large blaze near the village, with a UN inquiry finding that Israeli authorities had been directly involved in settler attacks that killed Palestinians.
