West Bank hardships fuel exodus of Palestinian Christians

RAMALLAH, Aug 8: Growing economic hardship, security concerns and restrictions on movement are driving increasing numbers of Palestinian Christians to consider leaving the West Bank, church leaders and officials say, raising fears over the future of one of the region’s oldest Christian communities.

Reverend Mitri Raheb, founder and president of Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, warned that the Christian population could disappear from the Holy Land if current conditions persist. “If the current conditions continue, there will not be a single Palestinian Christian left by 2050,” he said.

An estimated 40,000 to 45,000 Christians now live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, representing just over one percent of the population. Christians accounted for about six percent of the population when Israel began occupying the West Bank in 1967.

Since the Gaza war began in 2023, Palestinian Christians have faced worsening economic conditions alongside increased Israeli military operations, checkpoints and attacks by settlers, according to church leaders and residents.

Issa Qassis, a 31-year-old entrepreneur from Ramallah, said he is considering immigrating to the United States because of growing frustration over the situation. “Every time I move one step forward in my work, I end up taking three steps back,” he told AFP.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said Christians often have greater access to emigration opportunities because of established relatives and communities abroad. She described the decline in the Christian population as a “very serious alarm bell” and urged stronger international action to help Christians remain in the land where Christianity began.

The Christian population in Gaza has declined even more sharply, with only around 600 Christians estimated to remain in the war-ravaged territory, which has a population of more than two million.

Church officials say emigration from the West Bank has accelerated since the Gaza war began. Raheb said more than 200 Christian families have left the territory since 2023, while church leaders report increasing departures among young people.

In Taybeh, east of Ramallah, the West Bank’s last entirely Christian town, more than 15 families have emigrated since 2023, according to local churches. The town’s population has fallen to about 1,200 from around 3,000 in the 1980s.

Father Bashar Fawadleh, the Latin Church parish priest in Taybeh, said repeated settler attacks, security concerns and economic difficulties were forcing residents to reconsider their future. Although the town is only about 12 kilometers from Ramallah, Israeli military checkpoints can make the journey take around an hour.

Palestinian Christians have emigrated in successive waves for generations, establishing large communities overseas, particularly in the Americas. A 2020 survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 35 percent of West Bank Christians were considering emigration because of economic difficulties, educational opportunities or the search for stability and freedom.

Researcher Khalil Shikaki, the center’s director, said the desire to emigrate among West Bank Christians was roughly twice as high as among Muslims at the time. Six years later, he said, “almost everything has become worse.”