On July 31, Israeli settlers - escorted by soldiers with the Israeli Civil Administration, the military body governing the occupied West Bank - raided the Kisiya family’s land in Al-Makhrour, a lush valley near Bethlehem, and forcibly evicted the Christian Palestinian family. On the day of the eviction, the Israeli army had declared an area adjacent to the Kisiya land a closed military zone. While their land wasn’t included in the order, the army used it to bar the family from accessing it. Community Peacemaker Teams, and international organisation, said that the Kisiya family, who have French and Israeli citizenship, have the necessary legal documents from the Civil Administration to prove they legally own the land targetted by settlers and are entitled to run a family restaurant on the site. Following the seizure, the family set up a solidarity camp at the site and were joined by members of the Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace, which supported the family amid attacks by Israeli settlers and their detention by Israeli forces. The Kisiyas - along with their supporters - have also continuously returned to their land to demonstrate against the forced eviction and to try and reclaim their home. Alice Kisiya, who has inadvertently become the face of her family's plight, and her mother Michelle were arrested by Israeli forces on Sunday after conducting a sit-in on the land they own. Michelle was subsequently freed and banned from returning to Al-Makhrour for 15 days while Alice was released on Monday. Meanwhile, Israeli officers had detained Alice's brother after he attempted to prevent the raid from Israeli settlers. On August 14, far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on August 14 approved the building of a new illegal settlement, named Nahal Heletz, on a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Bethlehem. In the announcement, Smotrich said that "no anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist decision will stop the development of settlements".
Christian Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank and Gaza spent Christmas apart... as Gaza continues to be besieged by Israeli Forces. In previous years many families would be granted passes to travel to Bethlehem and be reunited during the festive season. But this year, many of Gaza's Christians are homeless, displaced and fear for the future.
Video shot by NBC News showed dozens of Palestinian Christians gathered at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City to celebrate Easter Sunday amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The church has become a sanctuary for displaced Gazans.
A thousands-year-old Christian community in Palestine is facing eradication amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and illegal occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Here’s their story.
Dozens of members of Gaza’s tiny Christian community held a Christmas Eve service on Sunday in the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. It is the only Catholic Church in Gaza City and a number of Christians sought refuge in the parish when the war started and hundreds of thousands were displaced to the south of the strip.
As Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday, Palestinian Christians from the occupied West Bank were prevented from reaching Jerusalem for Good Friday to walk the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus is said to have followed on the way to his crucifixion more than 2,000 years ago. Meanwhile, Jesus's birthplace of Bethlehem is uncharacteristically empty of tourists this year as Israel's assault on Gaza and crackdown on the West Bank escalate. "Nothing can wash the blood from your hands," said the Reverend Munther Isaac at an Easter vigil for Gaza on Saturday, about Western complicity in Israel's genocide of Palestinians. Isaac is a Palestinian Christian theologian and the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He joins Democracy Now! to discuss the history of Palestinian Christians in Gaza, Israel's occupation of Bethlehem and its strangling of freedoms in the West Bank, U.S. Christians' support of Israel and more.