Senate Resolution Will Demand Answers on Extremist Israeli Settler Violence Against US Citizens

“The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence and looking the other way—it’s time to end our complicity, once and for all,” said US Sen. Bernie Sanders.


A Palestinian girl looks at Israeli soldiers patroling as Palestinian residents remain confined inside their homes in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the West Bank, on August 20, 2026.
(Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Aug 27, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A group of Senate Democrats on Thursday announced plans to introduce a privileged resolution requiring the Trump administration to give Congress more information about violence carried out by extremist settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Led by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, the lawmakers are demanding the US Department of State produce reports detailing investigations into the killings of nine US citizens at the hands of Israeli settlers in recent years, as well as assessments on the human rights impact of Israeli policies such as the detention of Palestinian children.


Amnesty, UN Office Condemn Israeli Settlers’ Siege of Palestinian Homes in West Bank

Van Hollen said the resolution was necessary because the Trump administration has done nothing to hold the Israeli government accountable for the deaths of US citizens.

“As we’ve seen violence rise in the West Bank, American citizens have been killed time and again, and they have received no justice and no accountability,” said Van Hollen. “It’s past time we get answers on their deaths—and on the growing violent instability in the West Bank and the injustices facing Palestinian civilians on a daily basis.”

Sanders accused the Israeli government of offering “impunity” to settlers who carry out “horrific violence” against Palestinian civilians regularly.

“Enough is enough,” said Sanders. “The United States cannot keep bankrolling this violence and looking the other way—it’s time to end our complicity, once and for all.”

Kaine described the Israeli government’s “lack of response” to the settler violence as “unacceptable,” saying it “threatens the long-term safety and security of the entire region.”

“Friends need to listen to each other,” said Kaine, “and my colleagues and I have repeatedly urged Israeli leaders to take firmer action to curtail illegal settlements in the West Bank, prosecute violent settlers, and protect Palestinian residents as well as American citizens living in or visiting the West Bank.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is also supporting the resolution, slammed the Trump White House’s complicity in the Israeli settler attacks, nothing that the administration “has even gone so far as to reverse sanctions against individuals connected to this pattern of horrific violence.”

“It’s long past time for the US government to stand up for human rights,” said Warren, “investigate this violence against Americans and Palestinian civilians, provide full information to Congress, and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

By introducing the measure as a privileged resolution, the Democrats can force a vote on it on the floor of the US Senate if the chamber’s Foreign Relations Committee fails to act on it within 10 days of its introduction.

Human rights organizations for months have been sounding the alarm about the situation in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have routinely attacked Palestinians at their own homes.

An analysis published by the Carter Center last month found that “settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank,” as “more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler attacks and home demolitions this year—double the daily rate of the previous three years.”

US Diplomat Who Resigned Over Gaza Condemns Biden Officials Who Defended Genocide—And Now Claim to Regret It

“They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel,” said Hala Rharrit. “They enabled it 100%.”


Former State Department official Hala Rharrit speaks during the press conference held by doctors who returned from Gaza at the Council on American-Islamic Relations headquarters in Washington, DC on December 9, 2024.
(Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Aug 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Recent expressions of regret by top Biden administration officials who vehemently defended the United States’ billions of dollars in military aid to Israel as it was bombarding Gaza have not gone far with former diplomat Hala Rharrit, who was retaliated against for speaking out about the US policy before she ultimately resigned, and who condemned her former colleagues recent “PR game” this week.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Rharrit said the former officials who have mused that they would now support withholding weapons from Israel, or that they should have backed such a move while serving under President Joe Biden, are “just so despicable.”

“They’re so disgusting,” Rharrit said. “Those individuals, particularly [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and a handful of others, actually had the power to save human lives. They actually had the power to stop unconditional arms assistance to Israel, right? The Israelis were not killing the Palestinians by themselves. The Israelis were killing the Palestinians with American bombs, with American jets, with American everything. We enabled it 100%. They enabled it 100%.”



Rharrit, who resigned as the Arabic language spokesperson for the US State Department in April 2024, six months into Israel’s US-backed assault—which has been called a genocide by leading human rights organizations and Holocaust experts—spoke to MEE months after former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US should have called for a ceasefire earlier than it did, “such that the suffering the people endured, the loss of the children, so many others, could have been averted.”

Sullivan last year said—weeks before a ceasefire was finally agreed to—that he’d had a change of heart regarding providing Israel with weapons, and that he would no longer support the policy.

In November, Sullivan added in an interview with The Dartmouth that “it’s fair to say that there were a lot of objections from a lot of parts of the international community about the US continuing to support Israel over the course of last year—2024—and over the course of this year in 2025. I think a lot about what we could have done differently.”

Rharrit told MEE that “it’s despicable that now they’re trying to make themselves look like, ‘Oh we should have done better and we’re so sorry.’”

The former diplomat emphasized that the apology tour has taken place as it’s become increasingly clear that “America has changed” in terms of its views on Israel, Palestine, and the United States’ decadeslong, unconditional support for the Israeli military—despite US statutes like the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Leahy Laws, which bar the government from providing military aid to countries that block humanitarian assistance and that are accused of human rights abuses.

A poll released this week showed that large majorities of Democratic voters in the first six states that will vote in the 2028 presidential primaries support cutting off weapons aid to Israel, and another survey by Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies in March found that just 32% of Americans viewed Israel positively, compared with 47% in 2023.

“America is forever changed,” said Rharrit. “Americans no longer support these forever wars, they no longer support unconditional arms assistance to Israel. They no longer agree with US policy in the Middle East. And so now... they’re doing a PR game. This is just pure PR.”

Rharrit and other officials who resigned over the US policy on Israel and Gaza “were vindicated,” she said. “Of course we were right the whole time, because it’s international law. It’s US law. I abided by my oath to the Constitution... That is exactly what I did. That is exactly why I resigned.”

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Rharrit is one of “a rare breed” of diplomats.

“During this genocide I’ve met courageous diplomats and officials who denounced it at real personal cost,” said Albanese, whom the Trump administration targeted with sanctions earlier this year. “Imagine foreign policy built by more of them. Because the problem is never one unfit minister/head of state: It’s whole spineless cohorts around them.”

The UN and Red Cross Are Calling for Restrictions on AI Drones and Killer Robots

In a world where autonomous weapons can choose targets on their own, data can put us all at risk, a US veteran warns.

By Mike Ludwig , 

Truthout

August 27, 2026

A Titan Strike unmanned ground vehicle, equipped with a .50 Caliber machine gun, moves and secures ground on Salisbury Plain during exercise Autonomous Warrior 18.Ben Birchall / PA Images via Getty Images

The United Nations and the Red Cross are warning that rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic weapons are bringing the world dangerously close to crossing a moral red line that has inspired dystopian science fiction for decades: the autonomous targeting of humans by deadly machines.

In an appeal to world leaders on August 25, the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN Secretary-General António Guterres renewed their call for a global treaty establishing restrictions on autonomous weapons systems. They warned that the technology behind AI targeting software and unpiloted drones has developed at record speed since the UN and Red Cross first called for such negotiations three years ago.

“At the same time, scientists and engineers developing these systems have themselves raised the alarm,” Guterres and the Red Cross said in a joint statement on August 25. “When the architects of this technology are calling for limits, States cannot afford to remain passive. This year must mark a turning point.”

In other words, the world must act now to rein in what are commonly known as “killer robots” or “slaughterbots” — unpiloted drones, robotic dogs, robot sentries armed with guns, AI targeting systems, and other digitally driven death machines that can identify, strike, and eliminate human beings on their own.

“You don’t even need drone operators; you can just type in a coordinate and not see the implications of what you are doing,” said Rory Fanning, an author, activist, and veteran of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, in an interview.

The world must act now to rein in what are commonly known as “killer robots” — unpiloted drones and other digitally driven death machines that can strike human beings on their own.

Killer robots no longer exist in the realm of science fiction. Autonomous weapons are increasingly being deployed on the battlefield, including in the wars funded and waged by the U.S. in Ukraine and Iran, respectively. While the U.S. and other militaries have flown drones with remote human pilots for years, AI targeting systems are being integrated into drones that can identify, track, and eliminate targets on their own.

“The same technology that brings you an Uber kills somebody in Palestine, and people really need know that and consider that,” Lisa Ling, a U.S. veteran who worked at the Pentagon’s drone program prior to 2012, told Truthout.

In Palestine, autonomous weapon systems are targeting and brutally killing people in Gaza and the West Bank as part of ethnic cleansing campaigns sanctioned by Israel’s far right government. U.S.-based companies such as Microsoft and Palantir face backlash for selling AI targeting platforms to the Israeli military, which has attacked and killed aid workers, journalists, first responders, and health care workers. The UN estimates that 30 percent of the people killed in what is broadly viewed as a genocide in Gaza are children.

Israel’s use of AI tools has contributed to digital dehumanization, the process of reducing human beings to data points used to make decisions that negatively impact their lives, according to the Stop Killer Robots campaign. Like the data sold by brokers to target consumers with specific ads online, the data used for targeting Palestinians is gathered from cellphones and social media, for example.

As Ling points out, a corporate spinoff of iRobot, the company that makes the popular Roomba robot vacuum, became a contractor developing autonomous weapons for the U.S. military in 2016. The spinoff was acquired by Arlington Capital Partners in 2016 for $45 million, but Ling said we should be alarmed that technology in consumer products and autonomous weapons comes from similar sources.


“The same technology that brings you an Uber kills somebody in Palestine, and people really need know that and consider that.”

“Basically, the same company that [made] your Roomba is now a military contractor,” Ling said. “As a technician who worked inside the drone program, I would ask people to look at where the data that is being used for targeting is coming from.”

Matt Howard, the interim organizing director at About Face, an antiwar group for veterans, said Ling and other whistleblowers who previously worked with killer drones for the U.S. military have brought attention to the unique toll that working with such weapons takes on military personnel.

“There’s been a deep cost for people involved in those programs, both in terms of moral injury and trauma,” Howard told Truthout. “AI-driven, cloud-based warfare is this next phase we’re entering, and that has a ton of pretty scary implications.”

There is also a moral cost to the U.S. as a nation of voters. Howard pointed to a 2013 drone strike on a civilian wedding procession in Yemen that killed at least a dozen civilians, and the warrantless execution of a U.S. citizen by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, as examples of attacks that desensitized the U.S. public to autonomous warfare under President Barack Obama — but had deep and lasting impacts on veterans.

“Americans end up caring less about the legal and moral implications once there isn’t a human being pressing the trigger, or in the cockpit, and it’s not so close to home,” Howard told Truthout. “Our leaders understand how this works and they exploit it — drone and AI-influenced warfare has involved the U.S. more deeply in extralegal warfare with disastrous consequences for civilians in Iran and too many other countries to list.”

On February 26, 2026, the first day of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, a U.S.-guided Tomahawk missile struck a school for girls near a military facility in Minab, killing at least 156 civilians, including 120 schoolchildren. While Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have refused to admit U.S. responsibility, Democrats in Congress are investigating whether targeting AI software built by Palantir with Anthropic’s AI was used in what appears to be a horrific targeting mix-up based on outdated data.


Autonomous weapons remove humans from the decision-making process, leaving algorithms to make life-or-death choices that could cause future conflicts to spiral out of control.

While the U.S. was the first nation to deploy killer drones, the technology has become a sort of equalizer for smaller nations facing off against major militaries. Ukraine’s military became a world leader in drone innovation by fighting Russian invaders. In the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Tehran has strategically deployed cheap drones to attack U.S. bases, deplete stockpiles of expensive U.S. interceptor missiles, and blockade oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving Trump and Hegseth looking weak on the global stage.

Howard of About Face told Truthout that autonomous weapons remove humans from the decision-making process, leaving algorithms to make life-or-death choices that could cause future conflicts to spiral out of control. Some analysts fear the destructive potential of AI is on par with nuclear weapons, Howard said, and policy makers must learn lessons from the Cold War, when humanity faced the collective prospect of nuclear annihilation.

“You need people to be able to make the decision not to do a thing,” Howard said. “There are plenty of examples throughout history, including during the Cold War, when a human being decided maybe we are not going to push that button right now … and avoided full-on nuclear warfare.”

In their appeal to world leaders on August 25, the Red Cross and Guterres at the UN said nations must move beyond “incremental discussions” around autonomous weapons and take decisive action now toward global regulations or a treaty restricting their use. Nation-states have a responsibility both to the people suffering under current conflicts and future generations, they said, and negotiations must begin now:


A failure to act quickly and decisively will cost lives. It will leave future generations to inherit a world in which the absence of clear and specific prohibitions and restrictions on these weapons opens the door to practices that would erode the protections international humanitarian law is meant to guarantee … Future generations will ask whether leaders acted when there was still a chance to set limits before these weapons proliferated beyond control.

While it may be a political long shot in an age of rising authoritarianism and AI oligarchs, Fanning said we should demand our leaders establish a global ban on autonomous weapon systems not only to save lives, but also to preserve our humanity for future generations.

“Killing another human being is the most unnatural thing in the world to do, and the only way it can be done is creating distance between the person who is killing and the person who is dying,” Fanning said.

Kids in Gaza Sought Joy in Flying Kites. Israel Threatens to Kill Them for It.

Many Palestinian parents have had to stop their children from playing with one of the few toys they have left.

By Shahad Ali , 

Truthout

August 28, 2026

A Palestinian child flies a kite near the beach in Gaza City, Palestine, on June 19, 2026.Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images


The latest Israeli war in Gaza has deprived children of their right to enjoy childhood in the most basic ways. For over three years, Israel has largely banned the import of children’s toys through both commercial and humanitarian channels into the Gaza Strip. Most of the toys still available in limited quantities in Gaza’s markets entered the Strip before the war, and their prices are far beyond what most families can afford. For example, a single Barbie doll can cost the equivalent of $70 in U.S. currency, while a football can cost as much as $50.

This comes on top of the harsh living conditions that children are enduring in overcrowded displacement camps, which restrict their movement and ability to play freely. Israel now controls nearly 70 percent of the Gaza Strip within the so-called “Yellow Line.” It has also destroyed many of the spaces where children once played and sought relief, including public parks and football fields. According to a post shared by the official social media account of the Municipality of Gaza, “the Israeli war destroyed approximately 90% of the city’s public parks.” The municipality also said that irrigation networks serving the parks have been severely damaged, making it difficult to maintain the remaining green spaces where Gazans can briefly escape the psychological pressures caused by the war.

With no other way to release their pent-up energy, many children in Gaza have turned to making kites. Kites were popular in Gaza even before the war began. During the summer holidays, children used to spend hours together making colorful kites, which they would fly from the rooftops of their homes, or when they went to the beach. They felt both happy and proud during moments when their kites finally took flight and soared high into the sky, knowing that the hard work of making them was worthwhile.

Children have returned to making kites due to the availability and low cost of the materials needed to build them: wooden sticks, colorful paper or nylon, and string. Although a kite may be a simple toy, making one still requires creativity. Children can create different shapes, decorate them with drawings and patterns, and add long, colorful tails. Making and flying kites has become a form of therapy, allowing children to transform ordinary materials into something creative that reminds them of the joy and sense of freedom they have been deprived of for so long.

However, even these simple kites — which bring smiles to children’s faces and, for a moment, help them escape the reality of tents and rubble — have now been banned by Israel, which declared kite-flying a potential act of war after four kites were found near the Gaza-border communities of Nahal Oz and Be’eri.


Some in Gaza’s Youngest Generation May Not Even Know What Toys Are
Children’s difficulty accessing toys in Gaza reflects the broader destruction of childhood there. By Sara Awad , Truthout August 13, 2026

Al Jazeera notes the historical context that the Israeli government is invoking in its current effort to criminalize all kite-flying, saying discussions of the fallen kites this month “have evoked memories of incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza in 2018, in what Palestinians said was a protest against the Israeli blockade of the enclave.”

Another flareup over incendiary balloons occurred in July 2021, when Israeli firefighters claimed that three small brush blazes that they extinguished had been caused by incendiary balloons launched from Gaza, and Israel responded with the draconian measure of cutting the approved fishing zone in Gaza in half.

But when speaking about the kites discovered near Nahal Oz and Be’eri this month, the Israeli army has clearly stated that no suspicious or dangerous materials were found on the kites. Yet even so, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said “forceful” action would be taken “to put an end to this phenomenon.” Katz also warned, “A balloon is treated like a kite, and a kite is treated like a drone, with or without explosives.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also threatened to “evacuate the areas from which balloons, drones, and kites are launched,” warning that Israel would intensify its targeting of those responsible for such activities if Hamas did not stop them immediately. In addition, he emphasized that Israel “will not return to the reality that existed before October 7” and “will not allow any entity in Gaza to threaten its communities or undermine their security.”

The Israeli officials’ threats spread rapidly across Gaza, forcing many parents to stop their children from making and flying kites to protect their lives.

Khalid Al-Kateeb, 11, told me that a kite was the only toy he could afford. “Making a kite cost me zero shekels. All the materials were at home. The first time I tried to make one, it did not fly. I was sad, but still determined to make a more beautiful one that could fly high in the sky. I spent a week working on it with my siblings until we had the kite we dreamed of — a colorful one with a long tail.”

Khalid Al-Kateeb and his siblings pose on August 27, 2026, with a kite that they created but cannot fly because Israel has banned kites in Gaza.Shahad Ali

Khalid continued, “I flew it with my siblings, and I was so happy to see it flying higher than I expected. That day was the best day of my life, simply because I managed to play and laugh freely.”

However, when Khalid tried to fly his kite again, his mother stopped him.

“She kept telling me that it was dangerous. I cried a lot because I do not understand how my beautiful kite can be dangerous,” Khalid said.


“Children are deprived of even the simplest things that can let them enjoy the innocence of their childhood. Every day, Israel turns Gaza into an unbearable place for children.”

Shoroq Akilah, 30, Khalid’s mother, told me that Israeli officials’ threats to target anyone flying a kite shocked her. “My children loved this toy, and it is still hard for me to explain to them that they are no longer allowed to play with it simply because Israel considers it a threat,” she told me. “It really breaks my heart that my children are deprived of even the simplest things that can let them enjoy the innocence of their childhood. Every day, Israel turns Gaza into an unbearable place for children. No toys are allowed to enter, there are no spaces for playing, and now even kites are banned. I do not know what Israel will ban in the coming days.”

Eman Al-Kahlout, 41, a mother of four, told me that once she heard about the threats, she tore up all of her children’s kites. “I tried to explain to my children several times that they cannot fly kites because they are dangerous, but they did not understand and insisted on flying them,” she said. “How can a child understand that a kite made of string and wooden sticks could be dangerous? I was left with no choice but to destroy their kites. I know how hard my children worked to make those kites, and I could not bear their cries when they saw their beautiful kites torn apart. But I had no other choice. I cannot risk my children’s precious lives because of a kite.”

In a photo taken before Israel imposed its current ban on kite-flying, Taim Al-Kateeb, Khalid’s younger brother, shows off a kite he created and later flew.Shahad Ali

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, described Israel’s threat to expel Palestinians from their areas because of children flying kites as “outrageous.” She also said that, despite the so-called ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza continue to be subjected to daily bombardment, gunfire, and killings from Israel.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 1,280 Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” agreement took effect in October 2025. People in Gaza are feeling hopeless and helpless. We have had enough of living this horrible life, deprived of our basic right to live as human beings. Every day, we hear about negotiations, discussions about the disarmament of Hamas, and possible solutions to our suffering. But in reality, we only see more Israeli violations, threats, and attacks.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Shahad Ali
Shahad Ali is an English literature student and writer from Gaza.

Pope Leo: War fuels a ‘vicious cycle’ of environmental destruction

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The pope linked war, environmental destruction and inequality to the same crisis of the human heart, calling for a spiritual and ecological transformation.

Displaced Palestinians return to Rafah, Gaza Strip, Jan. 20, 2025, a day after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)

Claire Giangravè

August 20, 2026 

RNS

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV connected the exploitation of the environment to the proliferation of war, calling for a spiritual and ecological transformation in a message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation released Thursday (Aug. 20).

“Today, we are witnessing many crises and much human suffering,” the pope wrote, while “at the same time, it seems that the disruption to the harmonious balance of creation is accelerating.”

“These phenomena are not unrelated; they are a single plea for healing and peace arising from a wounded world,” he wrote.

World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, celebrated Sept. 1, is supported by the World Council of Churches and invites all Christians to pray and enact measures for the protection of the Earth.

Leo’s message was inspired by the prophet Isaiah (2:4), who imagined a day when resources would be used for agriculture and sustaining life instead of war. “But today, we too often witness the very opposite, as efforts continue to be directed toward violence and war,” he wrote.

The pope has made peace a central aspect of his papacy, repeatedly making appeals for reconciliation and dialogue among nations. In his most recent public appeal, he called for an end of violence in the West Bank as Israeli settler violence surges.

Pope Leo XIV delivers the Angelus noon prayer in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

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On Thursday, the pope met with Joseph Aoun, the president of Lebanon, which is currently under attack by Israeli forces combating Hezbollah in the south. The pope expressed “deep concerns” about the challenges of applying the countries’ delicate agreement toward peace, mediated by the United States and signed in June.

“War leaves wounds that extend far beyond the battlefield,” the pope said. “War also leaves behind social and ecological destruction that endures for generations,” adding that this creates a “vicious cycle” that destroys ecosystems and essential resources, creating new forms of inequality and social tensions that ultimately lead to new conflicts.

“This is not only a political failure, but also a moral and spiritual one,” he wrote.

The pope also pointed toward how individuals can address discord and division within themselves.

“The wounds of war and the degradation of the Earth, then, are profoundly linked to the condition of the human heart,” he wrote. “What is broken around is also broken within us.”

People fill water containers at a distribution point due to war-related water outages in Khartoum, Sudan, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

Leo called not only for a renewal in political structures but also within people’s hearts. Conflict and exploitation of the environment “stem from an ethical and cultural crisis,” which includes a desire for domination and profit, no sense of limits and not recognizing the dignity of every human being, he said. 

“Peace, then, begins in the heart and flows outward to our relationships, communities and the broader world,” he wrote.

He concluded his message by imagining a world where resources used to invest in war were directed toward supporting people in harmony with the environment, combating poverty and bringing peace.

Settler attacks threaten the West Bank’s final Christian village

(RNS) — As settler violence escalates in Taybeh, a Catholic priest and a papal charity are working to give Palestinian Christians security, jobs and community support to remain in the Holy Land.

An Israeli settler steps into the courtyard of a home as another stands next to the fence, trespassing on Palestinian property on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Taybeh, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Claire Giangravè

August 24, 2026 

RNS

(RNS) — In early August, Joseph Hazboun visited a newly built home among the fields near Taybeh, considered the last Christian village in the West Bank. Its owner, a local Palestinian Christian, claimed he could not access his property safely because of intimidation by Israeli settlers.

As Hazboun inspected fencing that was reportedly cut to allow settlers’ sheep onto the land, a settler approached him driving a tractor at full speed, he said, an attempt to intimidate and chase him and his group away.

“I witnessed firsthand how this settler terrorizes the local community,” Hazboun said, adding that the man carried a gun concealed beneath his shirt. The intervention of two Israeli peace activists prevented the confrontation from escalating.

Hazboun is the regional director for Palestine and Israel for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, a papal agency that supports Eastern churches and vulnerable communities and reports to the Vatican. A CNEWA delegation visited Taybeh and nearby properties on Aug. 5, investigating what the organization described as the “systematic intimidation” of Palestinian families by Israeli settlers.

CNEWA documented portions of Hazboun’s encounter in photographs and a video published on its YouTube channel and described the delegation’s findings in an Aug. 7 situation report.

“Standing on that contested hillside, the human cost of the West Bank’s expanding outposts became starkly evident — leaving families stranded away from the very homes they built, caught in a cycle of displacement and daily intimidation,” Hazboun wrote in the report.

Overlooking Taybeh in the West Bank in 2018. (Photo by Bukvoed/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

The confrontation was one episode in a growing struggle over land in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory captured by Israel in 1967 that remains under its occupation. Settler violence has escalated in recent weeks, drawing widespread condemnation and causing Israel’s military to declare Taybeh closed to non-residents to attempt to prevent attacks.

“This is the worst, the worst crisis that we have witnessed even since 1967,” said Hazboun, who has over 30 years of experience at CNEWA and has lived in the Holy Land his entire life.

Settlers have received support from some far-right leaders in Israel’s government, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Hazboun said. 

Unlike Israel’s large, government-authorized settlements, herding outposts may begin with little more than a tent, a trailer and a flock — a tactic settlers are using to expand. Some will enter private Palestinian properties with their sheep, with some incidents including arson and large, coordinated raids.

“A settler could go anywhere in the West Bank and set up a tent,” Hazboun said. “Then, after a couple of months, it will turn into barracks or a container. Then, after a few months or a couple of years, it will turn into homes and then a settlement.”

Like elsewhere in the West Bank, in Taybeh — the majority-Christian Palestinian village identified as the biblical town of Ephraim, where Jesus took refuge — tensions escalated this summer.

Char marks, which Palestinians say are from an attack by Israeli settlers, are visible in the cemetery near the St. George Greek Orthodox Church in the West Bank village of Taybeh, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

“Taybeh has experienced fires, incursions, attacks on private property, the intimidation of families and obstruction of emergency services,” said Father Bashar Fawadleh, the Latin parish priest of Christ the Redeemer in Taybeh. He said that in June, settlers obstructed Palestinian firefighters from responding to a large blaze near the town.

Bashar described a situation where “insecurity has become a daily reality.” He said that in recent weeks, settlers have cut fences, bathed in private water cisterns and stolen a beehive. Palestinian workers have been impeded from reaching their workplaces, and on Aug. 18, he said, two settlers on horseback terrorized a Palestinian family by approaching the wall of their home.

“For a family, seeing strangers come up to its garden or the wall of its home is not merely an inconvenience — it is a message of intimidation,” Bashar said.

Despite Taybeh’s Christian identity, Bashar underscored that the settler attacks are not motivated by religion. “We are Christians, but we are also Palestinians,” he said. “Settlers entering Palestinian land generally do not first ask whether its owner is Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim.”

The incursions continued after the Israeli military’s closure of the village two weeks ago, Bashar said. “A decision has value only if it is enforced,” he said. 

A Palestinian altar girl carries a cross after taking part in a procession during celebrations honoring the Virgin Mary in the West Bank town of Taybeh, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

The priest asked that the restrictions be applied only to those who act illegally to intimidate residents, not farmers, visitors or others who want to support the community.

Bashar said he attempts to guide his flock spiritually through feelings of rage, desperation or the desire to leave.

“Today, perhaps the gravest problem is invisible,” he said. “Residents are beginning to lose the basic sense that they are safe in their own homes.”

The situation in the West Bank also drew the attention of Pope Leo XIV, who made an appeal in his Angelus address on Aug. 16 “for an end to the ongoing violence against the Palestinian civilian population.” Bashar said the pope has continued contact with the only Catholic parish in Gaza, the Holy Family Church, which continues to celebrate Mass and provide shelter as Israeli attacks continue, despite a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October 2025.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, visited Taybeh on the feast of Mary’s Assumption into heaven on Aug. 15 — “at a time when many people felt vulnerable and exhausted,” Bashar said. He said the visit reminded the small Christian community that they are not alone.

In his homily at the Christ the Redeemer church, Pizzaballa urged the faithful to “not be afraid” and to remain a Christian voice despite the “very complex situation” in the Holy Land.

“We will continue to do everything in our power to preserve the Church’s presence here, at every level, throughout the Holy Land,” Pizzaballa said.

For Bashar, the message was clear. “We will relinquish neither our presence nor our right to live on this land,” he said.

Palestinian Christians represent only an estimated 1% of the population of the West Bank and Gaza, according to a 2017 Palestinian Authority census. In Gaza, the number of Christians has declined sharply since 1997 to approximately 1,000 before the war, and church leaders say that number is roughly halved today. Taybeh counted an estimated 1,700 residents recently, Bashar said, but the figure is now around 1,200.

Christian charities like CNEWA are attempting to sustain the population by providing food security, part-time employment, maternal and infant care and educational services tailored especially for young women. The organization aims to help fund a regional football field and a track-and-field space to allow youth in the Taybeh area to have a space to play and grow together.

Hazboun emphasized the importance of “investing in Christian-Muslim relations on a grassroots level,” allowing children to grow and play together to overcome conflict.

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But road closures, military blockades, poverty and unemployment continue to threaten the Palestinian population, including Christians. And charities struggle to fund aid in the West Bank as tensions unfold in other parts of the world, including Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.

“I do believe that we are very privileged to be Palestinian Christians — we are Christians from the land of Jesus Christ,” said Xavier Abu Eid, a political scientist and a Palestinian Christian.

A former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Abu Eid said he was almost killed two years ago after an ambush by Israeli settlers as he drove with his pastor from Jericho to Ramallah, not far from Taybeh.

“I think some people are focusing on people that are leaving the country,” he said. “And many Palestinians are leaving, not just Christians.

“But it’s important to support and focus on those who are struggling to stay in Palestine,” he added.

 

13 US citizens denied entry to Israel for weeklong trip to learn about Palestinian Christians

(RNS) — Amid escalating violence in the West Bank, an interfaith group, led by a retired Emory University theology professor, was turned back at Israel's border.

The Sheikh Hussein Crossing, or Jordan River Crossing, between Jordan and Israel. (Photo by Avishai Teicher/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

Yonat Shimron

August 19, 2026 a

RNS

(RNS) — A group of 13 United States citizens who traveled to Israel to take part in a weeklong trip with a Christian organization dedicated to Palestinian liberation theology were denied entry at the border last week.

The interfaith group, led by retired Emory University theology professor L. Edward Phillips and his wife, the Rev. Sara Webb Phillips, an ordained United Methodist minister, were set to tour Jerusalem and West Bank sites with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, a 40-year-old nonprofit organization registered in Israel.

They traveled from the U.S. to Jordan and had planned to enter Israel via the Sheikh Hussein Crossing when they were interrogated by Israeli border agents. Nine were initially granted visas and allowed into Israel, while four were denied. Then in a turnabout, Israeli border authorities boarded a bus where the nine were waiting and seized and cancelled their visas.

“I always wanted to be first at something,” said L. Edward Phillips, 71, who taught historical theology and worship at Emory’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, speaking by phone from Jordan. “Now I’m the first person to lead a Christian delegation into the West Bank to be categorically denied entry.”

Seven of the 13 members of the delegation to Israel gathered for a photo prior to crossing the border and being denied entry to Israel last week. L Edward Phillips and his wife, Sara Webb Phillips, right, second and third row, are ordained United Methodists from Atlanta. (Photo courtesy of Edward Phillips)

Israel’s Border Control Administration, part of the Ministry of Interior, did not respond to RNS’s emailed requests for comment.

Sabeel’s director, Omar Haramy, said that although Israel has denied entry to a handful of individuals over the years, it has never denied an entire delegation.

“This is something you don’t expect in a country that labels itself as a liberal democracy,” Haramy said. “This is how you’d expect somebody going into Iran or Iraq or North Korea. You don’t expect a group of interfaith people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, with a clean record, many of them professors, graduates of top-notch universities, to get treated like this.”

Sabeel, which has welcomed thousands of visitors to Israel and the West Bank over the years, is appealing the denial of two in the group. Jonathan Kuttab, a lawyer and the executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America, an affiliate organization, said Israel does not allow groups to appeal.

Two reasons were citied for each of the denials: public safety and immigration considerations, specifically that some members of the group might overstay their visas, Kuttab said.

Kuttab also protested the Israeli decision to the U.S. Embassy and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. The State Department did not respond immediately to RNS’s request for comment.

In the past couple years, the Israeli government has arrested and swiftly deported dozens of international activists, including U.S. Jews who traveled to Israel as volunteers with nonprofits to help Palestinians in the West Bank.

Both Muslims and Christians in the West Bank have suffered escalating violence at the hands of Israeli settlers and/or the Israeli army. A United Nations report from late July estimated 2,000 such attacks will occur by the end of 2026 — an all-time high.

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Israel has not routinely denied access for tourists on short stays.

But that may be changing.

Sara Webb Phillips, among the last four delegation members denied visas, said she was hectored and intimidated by border agents, accused of being an activist and asked to write down every organization she is a part of. She listed the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Sabeel is not a membership organization.

“They were bullying me, and finally (the border agent) says, ‘We know about your work. We know you are with Sabeel,’ and she said, ‘You know they’re a terrorist organization,’ and I said, ‘No. They’re an organization that’s working peacefully for Palestinian rights,'” Phillips said.

Friends of Sabeel North America, or FOSNA, has called for an investigation into the incident and posted a petition to its website.

The eight-day trip was supposed to include stops in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron, and meetings with Palestinian Christians in those cities, many of whom have endured Israel’s brutal occupation. The itinerary also included a trip to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.

L. Edward Phillips said the purpose of the trip, like several others he has participated in over the years, was to learn about Palestinian Christians’ lives and to tell others about what they saw. 

“This is a come see what’s happening, learn about the situation, and go back and tell the stories trip,” he said. “We tell the stories of the people we’ve encountered, the histories of the places we’ve seen, the strength of the people locally that are putting up with amazing odds and the tradition of ‘sumud,’ or perseverance.”