Peace Now<\/a>, the outpost \u201cis intended to choke the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour and block its development,\u201d adding that the site on which Shdema is being built has been reserved for Palestinian development projects for about 15 years, but that \u201cthere is no limit to the settlers\u2019 audacity in establishing outposts and creating facts on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\nAccording to the Balasan report, \u201conly about 7% of Beit Sahour\u2019s administrative land remains accessible for building due to settlement encirclement and the Annexation Wall.\u201d This has caused an intensification of \u201cdemographic pressure\u201d on the town, limiting its urban development and encouraging \u201cthe displacement of its population, mainly composed of Palestinian Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond its material impacts, the settlement plays a symbolic and cultural role in the ongoing effort to entrench an exclusive Zionist narrative in the area,\u201d the report states. \u201cIsraeli settler groups have repeatedly invoked biblical justifications for taking over the site, despite archaeological evidence refuting such claims. These ideological assertions accompany attempts to rebrand the area as part of a \u2018return of Jews to Bethlehem,\u2019 a rhetoric deployed to normalize settler presence and obscure the illegality of the project under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
As mayor Iseed writes, the West Bank has already witnessed a historic rise in settler violence: <\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were 757 settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank since January 2025, a 13% increase compared to 2024. These attacks include assaults, destruction of property, and intimidation, often carried out with impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yusef Daher, Coordinator of the Jerusalem Liaison Office of the World Council of Churches, tells Mondoweiss that settler encroachment has devastated local communities, \u201cbecause we have neither the time nor the strength to stop this land grab.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are an unarmed people enduring extremely violent Israeli settler gangs under the protection of their army and ministers,\u201d Daher said.<\/p>\n
The Balasan report asserts that the establishment of Shdema constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the civilian population of the occupying power to the territory it occupies and proscribes the expropriation of land. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe outpost further contributes to the creation of irreversible facts on the ground, undermining the right of the Palestinian population to self-determination and violating obligations of the occupying power to protect property and ensure public order and civil life,\u201d the report states. \u201cIn this context, the establishment and expansion of the Shdema outpost are not isolated violations but form part of an unlawful territorial regime that the International Court of Justice [in its July 2024 Advisory Opinion] found incompatible with international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy entrenching and expanding civilian settlements on confiscated Palestinian land Israel both deepens the illegality identified by the Court and exacerbates its obligations of cessation and non-recognition,\u201d the report added. <\/p>\n
Consequently, the Shdema outpost, which \u201creinforces an internationally unlawful situation,\u201d must be brought to an end by third States, the report concludes.<\/p>\n
Rifat Kassis, General Coordinator of Kairos Palestine and a resident of Beit Sahour, told Mondoweiss that the settlement \u201cis a direct assault on the heart of the Christian presence in Palestine.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cBy confiscating what remains of our towns\u2019 open spaces and tightening the ring of settlements around Beit Sahour and Bethlehem, this project threatens the very existence of the largest remaining Christian community in the Holy Land,\u201d Kassis said. \u201cIf allowed to continue, it will be\u00a0the last nail in the coffin of the Christians\u2019 presence in Palestine, accelerating displacement, severing social cohesion, and pushing more families to forced migration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make this plea not because we expect political leaders \u2014 whose governments consistently choose their interests with Israel over justice for the oppressed \u2014 to change their course,\u201d Kassis explained. \u201cWe write it so that\u00a0our own descendants will know that we were not silent,\u00a0and so that\u00a0the future generations of those governments will know that their ancestors stood by in silence\u00a0while a people, and a Christian heritage rooted in this land for two millennia, were being pushed toward erasure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Israeli settler groups began razing lands in the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour just east of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-58314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58314","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=58314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}