Settlers Tighten Their Grip on Taybeh as a Young Christian Woman is Taken at Gunpoint in Beit Jala
Vulnerable People Project Condemns the Detention of Natalie Abudayyeh and the Siege of Taybeh, Calls for Her Immediate Release and Urgent Protection of the Holy Land’s Christian Community
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The Vulnerable People Project
June 3, 2026
JERUSALEM, June 3, 2026 /Christian Newswire/ — The dwindling Christian community of the occupied West Bank is facing intensifying pressure on two fronts, as escalating settler violence threatens the historic town of Taybeh and Israeli forces detain a young Christian woman without charge. The Vulnerable People Project (VPP) strongly condemns both, warning that their combined effect is to make life increasingly untenable for one of the oldest Christian populations in the Holy Land.
On the morning of June 2, Israeli forces detained Natalie Abudayyeh, a media and journalism student at Birzeit University and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Beit Jala, after taking her at gunpoint from her student residence alongside three other young women — among them Jolan Abu Awwad, Leila Na’el Khalil, and Sama Safi. According to a statement from Bishop Dr. Imad Haddad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), Natalie’s family did not initially know where she had been taken. A graduate of the Lutheran Talitha Kumi School, she now joins what the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reports are 89 Palestinian women held in Israeli prisons — among them detainees with cancer, minors, and women held under administrative detention with no charge or trial.
“From a student taken from her bed at gunpoint to settlers driving to the doors of a church, we are watching a deliberate effort to break the spirit of the Christian community in the Holy Land,” said Jason Jones, founder of the Vulnerable People Project.
Bishop Haddad has called unequivocally for Natalie’s immediate release, and his alarm has been echoed across Holy Land church leadership. The Dean of St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem noted that her seizure came barely two weeks after another young Palestinian Christian woman, Layan Nasir, was freed on May 20 following eight months in Israeli detention without charge. Her arrest also follows a broader pattern of Israeli raids on Birzeit University and the prolonged holding of students, which Palestinian rights groups and church leaders alike have condemned.
The pressure on Christian communities is also territorial. In the nearby town of Taybeh — widely recognized as the only entirely Christian town remaining in the West Bank — residents are facing an intensifying campaign of settler incursions and intimidation. A documented report submitted to diplomatic missions by Fr. Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of the Latin Patriarchate in Taybeh, records the establishment of a new settler outpost near the Caramelo Roundabout in May, the transfer of more than 50 camels and other livestock onto Palestinian land, the cutting of the community’s main water source, the intrusion of settlers into an inhabited family home on May 18, and an attempted arson attack on civilian vehicles on May 19 that residents intervened to stop.
“When a young woman can be detained without charge and an entire town can be cut off from its water and its land, the message to every Christian family is the same: you are not safe here,” said Jason Jones. “The world must demand Natalie’s release and stand with Taybeh before these communities are pushed out of existence.”
Taken together, advocates warn, the detention of civilians without due process and the coercive squeezing of Christian towns reflect practices that run contrary to international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention’s protections for civilians and its prohibitions on collective punishment and the seizure of occupied land. The cumulative effect, they argue, is the steady erosion of a Christian presence that has endured in the region for centuries.
The incursions have escalated in recent days, reaching the heart of the town. Residents report settlers using all-terrain vehicles and a gray vehicle to patrol the town center, residential neighborhoods, and main streets. On June 2 at approximately 5:00 PM, settlers were seen near the Orthodox Housing Road, where they reportedly blocked roads and disrupted construction on a new home; on the morning of June 3, they were observed driving along Main Street toward St George (Al-Khadr) Church, one of Taybeh’s historic houses of worship.
“The Vulnerable People Project calls on the international community, governments, and people of faith to advocate for Natalie Abudayyeh’s immediate release, to demand an end to the detention of Palestinian civilians without charge or trial, and to act urgently to protect Taybeh and the broader Christian community of the West Bank,” said Jason Jones. “As Bishop Haddad urged, friends and partners around the world should use every channel available to them — for the question is no longer whether these communities are under threat, but whether the world will act before they vanish from the land of their faith’s birth.”
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 walkensteina@gmail.com or 561-445-5409
ABOUT JASON JONES AND THE VULNERABLE PEOPLE PROJECT:
Jason Jones is a film producer, author, human rights activist, and founder of the Vulnerable People Project (VPP). VPP serves vulnerable and persecuted communities around the world, advocating for those threatened by war, religious persecution, genocide, and political oppression. Through direct assistance, public advocacy, and strategic awareness campaigns, VPP works to defend human dignity and support vulnerable people regardless of faith, ethnicity, or nationality.
VPP is currently leading the Save West Bank Christians Campaign, an initiative dedicated to documenting threats to Christian communities, supporting local churches and families, and raising international awareness of the challenges facing Christians in the Holy Land.
SOURCE The Vulnerable People Project
CONTACT: Alexis Walkenstein, AWE PR, Founder and President, 561-445-5409, walkensteina@gmail.com
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