5 Things to Know About Israel’s Oppression of Christian Palestinians

1. Israel systematically denies religious freedom to millions of Palestinians, including preventing Christian Palestinians from accessing their holy sites in Jerusalem at Easter.

• Since 1967, all Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, including Christians, have lived under Israel’s violent military rule and discriminatory apartheid system. Since 1993, most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been barred by Israel from entering East Jerusalem, which is central to Palestinian identity, culture, and religion.
• As a result, millions of Christian and Muslim Palestinians are prevented from accessing their most venerated houses of worship in East Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Easter. Israel also frequently prevents Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem from worshipping at these holy sites.
• This year, Israel closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to all worshippers ahead of Easter and the Holy Week, citing war time conditions, and blocked the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who represents the Vatican, from entering to conduct Palm Sunday mass. Following international criticism, Israel reversed course, saying the Patriarch could conduct mass, but it was too late. It was the first time in centuries that the Heads of the Church were prevented from conducting Palm Sunday mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

2. The Israeli government and violent Jewish extremists are suffocating Christian Palestinian communities in places like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, driving Christians out of the Holy Land.

• Severe Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, construction, and economic activity, Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements, and violent attacks by Israeli settlers with the backing of the government, inflict great harm and hardships on Christian Palestinians and all Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, forcing many to leave their communities and homeland to seek a better life elsewhere.
• Bethlehem, where Jesus was born and a historically Christian-majority city, is almost completely surrounded by Israel’s illegal West Bank wall and settlements, preventing the city from growing and strangling its economy. The wall and settlements also cut Bethlehem off from Jerusalem, which it was closely connected to economically and spiritually for millennia.
• In Jerusalem, Christians are being pushed out of the Old City by Jewish settlers with the backing of Israel’s government and for years have been the target of spitting and other attacks from Jewish extremists.
• In Taybeh, the last Christian-majority town in the West Bank, Israeli settlers have been waging a campaign of terror to drive Palestinians out of their homes and off their land, with violent attacks skyrocketing since October 2023.
• Inside Israel’s internationally-recognized, pre-1967 borders, indigenous Christian Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are treated as third or fourth-class citizens in their own homeland, systematically discriminated against in virtually every aspect of life.

3. Israel has virtually wiped out the small Christian community in Gaza with its siege and campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

• The effects of more than six decades of brutal Israeli military occupation and Israel’s 15-year, crippling, illegal siege and naval blockade of Gaza forced many Christian Palestinians to leave even before Israel’s genocide began in October 2023. Of the approximately 1,100 Christians living in Gaza prior to the start of the genocide, only about 500-600 remain today.
• Since the start of the genocide, the Israeli military has damaged or destroyed almost every house of worship in Gaza, including all three churches, In late October 2023, the Israeli military attacked the compound of Church of St. Porphyrius, one of the oldest churches in the world, killing 18 people and injuring at least 20 others. In July 2024, Israel bombed the church again, injuring several people. In December 2023, two Christian Palestinian women, a mother and daughter, were shot and killed by an Israeli sniper as they sought refuge in the Holy Family Parish. In July 2025, the Israeli military attacked the church again, killing three people and injuring 10 others, including the parish priest.

4. Christian Palestinians comprise some of the oldest Christian communities in the world and have played a prominent role in Palestinian society historically.

• According to a survey by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, as of 2012 there were about 180,000 Christian Palestinians in the Holy Land, including about 50,000 in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and 130,000 inside Israel.
• The majority of Christian Palestinians are Greek Orthodox, with smaller numbers of Roman Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Copts, Episcopalians, Ethiopian Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Lutherans, Maronites, Syrian Orthodox, and several other Protestant denominations.
• Historically, Christians have played a leading role in Palestinian society disproportionate to their share of the population, including economically and politically.

5. Israel’s denial of freedom of religion and oppression of Christian Palestinians is part of the apartheid system Israel has imposed in all of Palestine/Israel.

• Human rights groups, legal experts, and others have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, including Christian Palestinians, with its discriminatory regime of oppression. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, one of the heroes of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, repeatedly compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid South Africa’s treatment of Blacks, even stating that Israel’s apartheid is worse than South African apartheid.
• In 2022, Amnesty International issued a report, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity, which concluded:

Go deeper

• Fact Sheet: Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land (2012)
• Fact Sheet: Discrimination & Hate Crimes Against Christian Palestinians in the Holy Land (2015)
• Quick Facts: East Jerusalem
• Explainer: Israel’s West Bank Wall
• Fact Sheet: Is Israel an Apartheid State?
• Fact Sheet: Palestinian Citizens of Israel