Palestinian Christians leave West Bank amid hardship

Palestinian Christians are leaving or considering leaving the West Bank as worsening economic and security conditions, movement restrictions and settler attacks deepen fears about the community's future.

Between 40,000 and 45,000 Christians are estimated to live in the West Bank today, slightly more than one percent of the population. In 1967, when Israel began occupying the territory, Christians made up about six percent.

Reverend Mitri Raheb, founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, warned that if current conditions continue, there may be no Palestinian Christians left by 2050. He said more than 200 Christian families have emigrated from the West Bank since the Gaza war began in 2023.

Clergy members, officials and researchers say young Christians are leaving because jobs are scarce, movement is restricted and security has deteriorated. Issa Qassis, a 31-year-old entrepreneur in Ramallah, said he is considering emigrating to the United States after becoming "frustrated and hopeless" about the situation.

Palestinian foreign minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin said Christians can often emigrate more easily than Muslims because they are more likely to have relatives abroad who can help them find work and integrate. She said the decline in the Christian population should be a serious warning for the Christian world.

The Christian population in Gaza is far smaller, with about 600 people left in the territory of more than two million.

In Taybeh, east of Ramallah and described as the last entirely Christian town in the West Bank, churches have documented the emigration of more than 15 families since 2023. Its population is now 1,200, down from 3,000 in the 1980s.

Father Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Taybeh's Latin Church, said insecurity from repeated settler attacks, combined with difficult economic conditions, is pushing residents to reconsider their future.

A 2020 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 35 percent of West Bank Christians were considering emigrating for economic reasons, educational opportunities or in search of stability and freedom. The centre's director, Khalil Shikaki, said the desire to emigrate in the West Bank is twice as high among Christians as among Muslims, and that since the survey "almost everything has become worse."