The centuries-old Christian presence in the West Bank is under threat

The community I grew up in near Bethlehem is being squeezed out by Israeli settlers.Published On 7 Dec 2025I grew up less than a mile from Shepherds’ Field in Beit Sahour in the occupied West Bank – the hillside where, according to the Gospel of Luke, the news of Jesus’s birth was first proclaimed. For my family, these were not distant biblical landscapes. They were the backdrop of our daily lives: The olive groves we played in, the terraces we tended, the land where our faith and identity were rooted.Today, for the first time in my life, I felt fear that the community that raised me may not survive.In recent weeks, a new illegal Israeli settlement outpost has been established on the edge of Beit Sahour. Caravans and construction equipment have appeared on a site the town had hoped to use for a children’s hospital, cultural centre, and public spaces – projects supported by international donors and meant to strengthen a Christian community that has endured for centuries. Instead, those plans are now suspended, and the families who live nearby are bracing for uncertainty, rising tension, and the real possibility of further displacement.Others have documented the legal and political ramifications of these settlements. My concern is more personal and more urgent: What is happening today threatens the very continuity of Christian presence in the Bethlehem area – not abstractly, but concretely.Beit Sahour is one of the last majority-Christian towns in the West Bank. Our families are Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical. We worship together, marry across traditions, and share a heritage that traces back to the earliest centuries of the Christian story. But like many Palestinian communities, we are running out of land – and with it, out of time.