{"id":261839,"date":"2026-08-08T23:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/261839\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T23:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T23:56:20","slug":"hopeless-palestinian-christians-leave-west-bank-as-hardships-mount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/261839\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hopeless\u2019: Palestinian Christians leave West Bank as hardships mount"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Palestinian Christians call themselves \u201cliving stones\u201d and say they have lived continuously in the Holy Land for the last 2,000 years. Maybe not for much longer, believes Reverend Mitri Raheb.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cIf the current conditions continue, there will not be a single Palestinian Christian left by 2050,\u201d said Raheb, founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, the biblical birthplace of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Faced with growing uncertainty over economic and security conditions, hundreds of Christians have left since the war in the Gaza Strip began nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Since the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/israel-gaza-war?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gaza war<\/a> began, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank have become an almost daily occurrence, while the Israeli military has multiplied its operations and security checkpoints.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Issa Qassis, a 31-year-old entrepreneur, is considering leaving his family and the start-up he established in the West Bank city of Ramallah to immigrate to the United States.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cI started seriously thinking about it about a year ago,\u201d said Qassis, adding he felt \u201cfrustrated and hopeless\u201d about the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palestinian Christians call themselves \u201cliving stones\u201d and say they have lived continuously in the Holy Land for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,110835,27598,26301,3954,5061,24324,20746,35317,110834,66,5144],"class_list":["post-261839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-chile","tag-christians","tag-gaza-strip","tag-holy-land","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem","tag-palestinian","tag-ramallah","tag-taybeh","tag-united-states","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}