PROMOTING PEACE & JUSTICE Faith, work and survival endure in the West Bank’s last Christian village text by Leila Warah with photographs by Samar Hazboun
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alestinian journalist Jirias Azar believed Taybeh, in the West Bank, was a haven — “a quiet rural area with fewer people and more nature; a place where you can live a calm and pleasant life,” he said. In 2022, after three years of renovating a house in the ancient Palestinian Christian village, he and his wife, Celina, settled in, hoping to build a family and a peaceful life together. Their son, Sharbel, was born the next year. However, their sense of calm began to dissipate after 7 October 2023, when Israel launched a full-scale assault on Gaza in response to Hamas attacks on Israeli border communities. As Israel’s war on Gaza intensified, Footage on Roland Bassir’s cell phone shows Israeli settlers placing an Israeli flag on the guardhouse of his stone factory in Taybeh, West Bank.
so did Israeli military violence and settler attacks across the West Bank. According to the United Nations, more than 1,800 settler attacks were recorded across the Palestinian West Bank last year. From January to September 2025, about 60 percent were in the governorates of Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah, where Taybeh is situated. “I started to feel scared,” said Mr. Azar, 36. “It made me think that maybe life in Taybeh could become like those other places.” Last summer, the couple’s sense of safety collapsed. On 28 July, just after 2 a.m., they were awakened by a series of bangs. Mr. Azar saw flames outside their kitchen window. Their car was on fire. They grabbed Sharbel and ran into the dark, their neighbor shouting: “Settlers! There are settlers!” They fled to Mr. Azar’s family home in Ramallah.
Their car and everything in it — work equipment, documents and personal belongings — had been destroyed. Graffiti in Hebrew on a neighbor’s wall declared revenge for the neighboring village, Al-Mughayyir, which has been the site of ongoing violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinian land owners for many years. After his brother’s car was burned in another attack on their property in Taybeh three months later, the couple put their house up for sale. “I worked for 13 years to buy a car, build a house and obtain equipment for my work, and then I lost everything in less than a minute,” he said. Ms. Azar said she never imagined such an incident would happen to them. “We are still living that night. I still dream about it,” she said. “I can’t go back to the house. I can’t imagine living there again.”
100 YEARS OF HEALING & HOPE
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