By The Daily Caller (World News) | Created at 2026-05-29 16:15:44 | Updated at 2026-06-07 21:04:46
1 week ago
Israeli military officials allegedly attempted to halt a Catholic Marian festival in honor of the Virgin Mary in a Christian village located in the West Bank on Friday, sources say.
Jason Jones, founder and president of the Vulnerable People Project (VPP), told the Daily Caller that VPP had witnessed an Israeli military vehicle enter the village of Taybeh in the early morning and order organizers preparing for the festival to leave the area. (RELATED: Their Small Nation Cut A Deal With China, And Now The Cost Is Becoming All Too Real)
“A permitted Catholic festival honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary was nearly shut down by armed military intervention before it even began,” Jones said.
VPP told the Caller that it had been stationed in Taybeh to document the festival as part of its Save West Bank Christians Campaign, following concerns that the annual celebration may have been the target of Israeli settlers encroaching on the Christian village.
Approximately 30 minutes later, another military vehicle appeared and delivered the same orders, VPP told the Caller.
The parish priest overseeing the festival, Fr. F, contacted church authorities immediately, until the matter reached Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
According to VPP, Cardinal Pizzaballa was able to speak with Israeli authorities, eventually securing permission for the festival to proceed.
“Our fear this morning was that radical settlers would disrupt preparations for the Marian Festival. Instead, it was far more disturbing to watch the Israeli military intervene,” Lex Pouliot, manager of Middle East projects for the Vulnerable People Project and a witness to the military incursion, told the Caller through a VPP statement. “Hearing a stun grenade explode as Christians prepared for a permitted religious celebration brought into sharp focus the countless stories I have heard throughout my time in the West Bank. What I witnessed today should concern Christians around the world.”
Jones said the incident should alarm Christians around the world, adding that “the Christian community of Taybeh has endured escalating pressure for months, and today’s events demonstrate how fragile religious freedom has become in the very land where Christianity was born.”
Church leaders and residents also called for guarantees that religious celebrations could be held in the future without such disruption or fear, VPP said. Notably, Taybeh — a biblical village — is known as the last remaining fully Palestinian Christian town in the West Bank, but has seen its population dwindle to around 1,000 people in recent years amid increasing pressure from nearby Israeli settlers.
VPP told the Caller that this follows a Thursday incident in which the Israeli army stormed a brewery within Taybeh, blocking the owner from entering their own compound.
While interviewing a brewery worker about the realities of living and working in the village, VPP caught a video of the military approaching the brewery.
The village is known for its Taybeh Oktoberfest, which, starting in 2005, has grown to receive over 16,000 visitors from around the world each year, putting the Christian village on the map and boosting its local economy, the festival website said.
In another VPP video shared with the Caller, a different worker said that one of the Israeli soldiers had been berated by his Commander for apologizing and for being respectful.
“They don’t allow them to act like human beings,” the worker said, adding that this is the third time that this has happened. “They’re not welcome. Why should they come with guns… to drink beer? That’s their excuse?”
In March, Fr. Bashar Fawadleh issued an appeal saying that Israeli settlers had seized private land within the West Bank’s last entirely Christian village, including land near the village’s quarry and cement factory, EWTN News reported.
In late April, Pizzaballa and the leaders of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem sent authorities a formal complaint following encroachments by Israeli settlers on church-owned land in the West Bank.
The incident also follows criticism of Israel’s restrictions on celebrations of holy days for the Abrahamic religions at Jerusalem’s holy sites amid fears of an Iranian attack, as well as outrage after an IDF soldier decapitated a crucifix in Lebanon.
Neither the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) nor the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem responded to the Daily Caller’s request for comment as of publication.
