Holy Land priest: West Bank ‘burning, bleeding, crying out in pain’

JERUSALEM (LifeSiteNews) — “The West Bank is burning, bleeding, crying out in pain and suffering,” a leading Catholic priest in the Holy Land has warned, describing the deteriorating situation in the territory after being transformed by months of violence and military restrictions.

On July 26, Father Ibrahim Faltas, director of the schools of the Custody of the Holy Land, warned that the West Bank has become unrecognizable after months of escalating violence, urging those responsible for the bloodshed – and those who have the power to stop it – to find a way for building peace. Writing in Vatican News, Faltas described daily suffering affecting Palestinian communities and expressed hope that upcoming elections in Israel and the Palestinian territories would bring justice and a new balance in the war-torn region.

“The West Bank is burning, bleeding, crying out in pain and suffering,” Faltas wrote. “Like Gaza, the West Bank has become a territory that has lost its scale and its spaces, a place that is no longer recognizable.”

Faltas also said that Gaza and the West Bank had been divided physically and socially and wounded in its historical identity.

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The Franciscan friar stated that every part of the West Bank is experiencing “violence and destruction” on a daily basis. According to his account, residents face “deprivation, restrictions, suffering, and humiliation.” “People are dying in an unofficial war, undeclared but that continues, constant and widespread,” the priest wrote.

Among the situations he highlighted were “countless fires” affecting homes and agricultural land, as well as severe limitations on movement between towns and villages. “It is no longer possible to travel from one city to another – even if they’re very close,” Faltas decried. “Whether for medical emergencies, to work, to help relatives, or to defend small family properties that have been illegally occupied and seized by aggressive and violent settlers.”

Faltas also reported receiving numerous requests for help from people facing increasingly dangerous and urgent circumstances. He said that “more than a thousand” checkpoints, along with “temporary roadblocks,” had become a dominant feature of a landscape that was once associated with olive groves, farmland, grazing animals, and the ordinary social and economic life of Palestinian communities.

The friar further argued that Israeli settlements had gradually surrounded villages and centers of community life over the years. “They encircle Palestinian life without embracing it – they suffocate it.”

He also said the situation was particularly damaging for young people, who struggle to envision a future for themselves, and for children who witness their land being burned and restricted.

Faltas cited additional examples of hardships faced by families. He said that parents are often unable to bring children requiring medical treatment to hospitals, that individuals cannot easily reach elderly or sick parents, and that “[f]athers are stopped at roadblocks that prevent them from going to work.” According to him, “these are situations that have persisted for months, even years, in the West Bank.”

He also spoke of fear generated by what he described as “countless raids” by violent Israeli settlers. Faltas said many Palestinians feel that even their homes no longer provide “refuge or safety.”

Faltas’ witness concluded with a reference to elections that have been announced in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. Faltas expressed the hope that the elections could bring justice to the people of the region. He added that believers continue to hope that the course of history can “change direction.”

The Custody of the Holy Land, to which Faltas belongs, is the Franciscan institution entrusted by the Catholic Church with the care of many Christian holy sites in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, Cyprus, and other parts of the Middle East. In addition to its religious mission, it operates schools, charitable works, and social programs serving local communities.