LONDON: The Palestinian Authority warned on Sunday that the Israeli decision to build 34 new settlements in the occupied West Bank posed a direct threat to the presence of Christian communities.
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine has expressed its concerns in a letter to church leaders worldwide about the expansion of Israeli settlements, land confiscation, and isolating towns through military checkpoints, according to the Palestine News Agency.
Six new settlements are planned to be built in the Bethlehem Governorate, which includes the predominantly Christian towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour.
Christians make up about 1 to 2 percent of the population in the West Bank and there are about 50,000 across the Occupied Territories. Those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip carry the same identification documents as their Muslim peers and are subject to the same Israeli policies.
Israel allocated $434 million last week to build 34 settlements and an additional $355 million for road construction to support these projects.
The committee, which monitors and safeguards sites of Christian importance, said in the letter that the Israeli settlements were “an attempt to reshape the geographic and demographic reality of the occupied Palestinian territory by connecting settlements with road and service networks.”
It urged churches worldwide to protect the Holy Land, the Palestinian Christian presence there, and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
There are already 279 settlements in the West Bank, including 14 in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967. Almost 737,000 settlers live in these settlements, among 3.43 million Palestinians.
Israeli settlement building and expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have long been condemned by many members of the UN. Israel’s actions are widely considered to be illegal under international law.
