Ihab Hassan: ‘No accountability’ over attacks on Palestinian Christians

By Joseph Tulloch

Vatican News last spoke to Ihab Hassan in July 2025, as a wave of Israeli settler violence was engulfing Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank. “What is needed is for the settlers to be held accountable for their violence,” Hassan, a Palestinian Christian human rights advocate, said at the time. “If they’re not, then this will just keep happening.”

Almost a year later, Hassan told Vatican News this week, the settlers have faced “no consequences” for their actions. The activist, who collects and shares footage of human rights violations across Palestine, has since documented numerous further attacks, including settlers setting fire to vehicles, smashing windows, and occupying a quarry on the town’s western outskirts.

The issue, Hassan stressed, is the “impunity” with which the settlers are able to operate. While the Israeli government has condemned some of their actions, “no real steps” have been taken to stop the attacks or arrest those responsible.

Israeli settlers lit fires in Taybeh in July last year

16 deaths in West Bank since January

This situation is not unique to Taybeh or to the Palestinian Christian community.  Similar attacks are taking place “across the West Bank, from Hebron to Jenin”, Hassan said.

Last month, two Palestinians, including a 14 year-old boy, were shot dead in an attack on a school in Mughayyir. Two weeks ago, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that, in total, 16 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since the start of the year.

“What is really empowering these settlers is the policy of the Israeli government,” Hassan said. Israel recently approved a record 34 new settlements in the West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law – and, Hassan stressed, are used as “launch bases” for settler attacks on Palestinian towns and villages.

A plea for solidarity

The deteriorating humanitarian situation in the West Bank is the impetus behind a new project Hassan is involved with, Save West Bank Christians.

Founded by American filmmaker and philanthropist Jason Jones, the project aims to highlight the “existential” threat posed by illegal Israeli settlements to the Holy Land’s ancient Christian communities.

“We’re not asking for any political stance”, Hassan emphasised. “All we are asking for is solidarity, for Christians around the world to put pressure on those responsible to stop these attacks”.

Hassan described a recent phone call with a family in Jalud, near Nablus, whose home had been attacked by Israeli settlers. “They told me that they think the settlers will soon attack again,” he said. “They told me that nobody is taking any action to stop it and they said that, if they die, nobody will notice.”