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Israel is evicting one of the last Christian families near the birthplace of our Lord Jesus – LifeSite

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(LifeSiteNews) — The first wave of new settlements in the West Bank since 2017 has seen Israeli authorities and armed settlers force one of the last remaining Christian families off their land – in the region of Bethlehem.

Alice Kisiya, a Palestinian Christian whose family have lived on their land for generations, explained how “on July 31, a group of Israeli soldiers and armed settlers stormed my house.”

The soldiers and settlers “removed the main gate and expelled us from our land,” throwing our their possessions “without any official orders.”

A protest camp has been erected near Kisiya’s former home, joined by “Muslims, Jews, and Christians,” according to reports.

Kisiya was arrested several days ago during the ongoing protest at the seizure of her family’s land, to build a settlement condemned as “illegal” by the International Court of Justice. 

She was released on bail on August 27.

According to France 24,  news of the storming of the Kisiya’s land “drew international outcry, with Washington and the United Nations saying the settlement known as Nahal Heletz would jeopardize the viability of a Palestinian state.”

Reports say the Kisiya family had their restaurant and former home on the land destroyed by Israeli authorities in 2019. Now the Israeli state is coming for their land.

Despite holding legal documents proving their ownership, an Israeli court has upheld the claim to the Kisiya’s land of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an NGO purchasing land for Jewish settlement. The family have been evicted from their home whilst settlers continue to move in.

In July 2024, the Canadian Parliament revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund “over support for military infrastructure in Israel.”

Oxford University historian William Dalrymple said of the forced eviction, “The Israelis are eliminating one of the last Christian Palestinians strongholds in the West Bank and the place I chose to stay when I was researching the Palestinian Christians in From the Holy Mountain.”

“It is a place with an incredibly ancient history, a cradle of Christianity.”

Israeli demolition of Alice Kisiya’s home (Source: Instagram, @kisiyaalice)

READ: Gaza’s hidden horror: Christian churches bombed, women beaten, homes stolen

Anti-Zionism will not stop us, says Smotrich

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and leader of the Religious Zionist Party, dismissed outrage at the seizure of the land as “anti-Israelism,” describing the building of illegal settlements his “life’s work.”

“No anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism will stop the continued development of the settlements. We will continue to fight the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state, and establish facts on the ground.”

“This is my life’s mission and God willing I will continue with it as much as I can.”

Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement himself, exercises “sweeping powers over civilian affairs in the West Bank” in his dual role as “an additional minister in the Defense Ministry,” according to the Times of Israel.

He has been reported as “dreaming of the settlement of the West Bank” and has announced his intention to settle Gaza in addition, making a Palestinian state impossible. This “Greater Israel” policy, critics say, is a long-held Zionist goal which requires the elimination or transfer of the non-Jewish population.

The Times of Israel also reports that Israeli human rights group Peace Now “accused Smotrich of advancing a ‘de facto annexation’ plan of the West Bank, and said that the location of Nahal Heletz was intentionally chosen to disrupt the territorial contiguity between numerous Palestinian villages in the region with a population of approximately 25,000 people.” 

Source: Peace Now

Escalating violence in the West Bank

A map published by Peace Now shows the site of the proposed settlement, warning that “the pace of declarations” of new settlements under the Netanyahu regime “is unprecedented.”

“The new settlement at Nahal Heletz will create an isolated enclave deep within Palestinian territory, inevitably escalating friction and security challenges,” their report claimed, saying that amidst a growing economic and security crisis sparked by the ongoing war, “the Finance Minister [Smotrich] and the Prime Minister [Netanyahu] remain fixated on expanding settlements in the heart of Palestinian communities.”

Peace Now’s press release concluded: “This administration is wholly dedicated to advancing the settlement enterprise while completely neglecting the needs of both Israelis and Palestinians. This government must be held accountable and replaced – now.”

The new settlement is located on a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as Middle East Eye reported on August 21.

Sanctions on settler industry

The Canadian government has sanctioned Amana, described here as “the development company of the settler movement” which is also involved in developing the settlement at Nahal Heletz.

Minister for Settlements Orit Strook denounced the sanction as the work of “left-wing extremists.”

Strook routinely refers to “the Lesser Israel” in her official communications, buttressing claims that the Zionist-Settler movement seeks to establish a “Greater Israel” – by “effectively annexing” the West Bank, as Peace Now and others claim is the purpose of Israel’s “massive invasion” of the West Bank, reported on August 28.

This, reports say, is Israel’s largest military incursion since 2002 into the region reserved under international law for a future Palestinian state.

Settlements Minister Strook has also heavily criticized the Israeli media and army for its measures to highlight and prosecute the rape of Palestinian detainees in the Sde Temain camp.

Armed Zionist settlers twice attempted to free the IDF soldiers responsible for the rape. An armed mob led by a government minister and three members of Parliament stormed the first one, then a second barracks where the Israeli soldiers had been awaiting charges. These soldiers were caught on camera sodomizing a detainee with a metal instrument, with the events “leaving Israel on the brink of savagery,” as Haaretz reported.

Yet there are voices in Israel calling for an end to the “brutalization” of Israeli society condemned by Haaretz.

Yehuda Shaul is the co-founder of Breaking the Silence, a campaign group staffed by Israeli Army veterans “aimed at raising awareness to the dire consequences of prolonged military occupation.”

Protest camp on the Kisiya family’s land near Bethlehem, which Israeli soldiers and settlers are seizing to build a new illegal settlement. (Credit: Alice Kisiya)

Shaul said on August 19th that “Amana is heavily involved in building and establishing many of the violent outposts and herding farms throughout the West Bank.”

He continued, “If the US, UK, and EU want to see an end to settler violence, they must follow Canada’s footsteps” – and sanction the business which powers violent illegal settlements.

Shaul is also the co-director of Horizon –  which describes itself as the “Israeli Center for Public Policy founded in 2020 as an independent thinking center dedicated to promoting a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Israelis like Shaul use their direct experience of Israel’s militarized occupation to campaign “to promote democracy and equality,” recognizing “that only by ending the military occupation can the fundamental right to self-determination of both Israelis and Palestinians be exercised.”

As the threat to one of the Holy Land’s oldest continuous Christian communities shows, the militarized occupation and settlement movement not only plunges Israel into “barbarism,” but also erases the rights – and presence – of Christians closest to the birthplace of Christ.

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