Vulnerable People Project and the Taybeh Catholic Parish Sound the Alarm as Settlers Move to Establish an Outpost Beside Palestinian Homes, Demanding Urgent International Action
NEWS PROVIDED BY
The Vulnerable People Project
July 6, 2026
TAYBEH, WEST BANK , July 6, 2026 /Christian Newswire/ — Since yesterday, groups of Israeli settlers have been repeatedly observed on Jabal Al-Massis, a hilltop belonging to the town of Taybeh, east of Ramallah, in what eyewitnesses and ongoing field monitoring describe as preparations to establish a new illegal settlement outpost beside Palestinian homes.
The Vulnerable People Project (VPP) and the town’s parish are sounding the alarm and calling for immediate international action to protect the West Bank’s last entirely Christian town.
The outpost would plant a permanent settler presence directly beside the community — a development that, based on a well-documented pattern across the West Bank, sharply raises the risk and frequency of attacks, harassment, and movement restrictions for the families living nearby. VPP field monitoring is working to verify the reports and will provide further updates as information becomes available.
This is part of a concerted, systematic effort. In recent months, the parish priests of Taybeh’s three churches — Fathers Bashar Fawadleh, Jack-Nobel Abed, and Daoud Khoury — have repeatedly warned that the eastern part of the town, comprising more than half its total area, has become a target for illegal outposts that expand quietly under military protection and serve as bases for further assaults on residents and their land. Jabal Al-Massis itself was the site of a recent arson attack, when settlers set fire to a large area opposite the town’s fuel station and obstructed residents who came to help extinguish the flames.
That warning sits within a sharply escalating regional pattern. In the days before this report, settlers set fire to a Bedouin home east of Taybeh and established a new outpost on the land of another Palestinian village near Nablus, blocking residents from their own fields. According to figures cited by church and humanitarian organizations, settlers and soldiers have carried out thousands of attacks across the West Bank since the start of 2025, razing hundreds of homes and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians.
“Settlers are now planting an outpost at every side of Taybeh, marking a dangerous new stage in the slow strangulation of the last Christian town in the West Bank,” said Jason Jones, founder of the Vulnerable People Project. “ Each new settlement expansion becomes a base for the next attack, the next blocked road, the next family pushed off its land. The world cannot continue to watch- we must stand with Taybeh now.”
That call is being echoed with urgency by the town’s own clergy. In a public appeal, Fr. Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Christ the Redeemer Parish in Taybeh, part of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, called on diplomats, consuls, ambassadors, the United Nations, churches around the world, and all international organizations to act immediately — to monitor the situation on the ground, visit the area, and use every diplomatic means available to prevent the establishment of the outpost.
“The time to act is now,” Jones urged, warning that failure to respond risks creating irreversible facts on the ground and further undermining the survival of the Christian presence in the Holy Land.
Outposts established on occupied land, and the coercive pressure they place on a protected civilian population, run contrary to international humanitarian law, including the prohibitions on the transfer of an occupying power’s population into occupied territory and on measures that drive a population from its home. Advocates warn that the quiet, incremental establishment of such outposts is precisely how facts are created on the ground faster than the international community can respond.
The Vulnerable People Project echoes that appeal in full, urging the international community to act while action is still possible — to send observers to Taybeh without delay, to demand that Israeli authorities halt the establishment of the outpost, and to prevent another illegal outpost from becoming a permanent reality. A community that has kept the Christian faith on this land for sixteen centuries should not be left to face this alone.
For more information about the Vulnerable People Project and its mission to Save West Bank Christians, please visit SaveWestBankChristians.com.
PRESS CONTACT: Alexis Walkenstein, AWE PR, founder and president via alexis@beinawepr.com or 561-445-5409
ABOUT JASON JONES & THE VULNERABLE PEOPLE PROJECT: Jason Jones is a film producer, author, activist, and human rights worker. He is president of Movie to Movement, the Human Rights Education Organization (H.E.R.O.) and founder of the Vulnerable People Project. The Vulnerable People Project advocates for persecuted communities around the world, with a focus on exposing human rights abuses and supporting vulnerable individuals regardless of faith or background.
SOURCE Vulnerable People Project
CONTACT: Alexis Walkenstein, 561-445-5409, alexis@beinawepr.com