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Breadcrumb
Palestinian churches are facing unprecedented pressure from Israeli authorities through systematic financial targeting, property disputes, and administrative restrictions that threaten to undermine one of Christianity’s oldest continuous presences in the Holy Land.
The recent freezing of Orthodox Church bank accounts represents the latest escalation in a pattern of actions that church leaders describe as deliberate attempts to force Christian emigration from Palestine.
In August 2025, Israeli authorities froze all bank accounts belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church in Palestine, a step that culminated in effectively paralysing the institution’s operations and threatening its ability to pay clergy salaries, maintain schools, and provide essential services to the community.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is one of the oldest Christian institutions in the world, with roots tracing back to the apostolic era. It serves as the guardian of Christianity’s most sacred sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
Israel’s financial measures in August echoed a similar crisis in February 2018, when Israeli authorities closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after demanding tax payments on church properties.
The financial pressure extends beyond symbolic gestures. Israeli municipal authorities have targeted 882 church-owned properties across East and West Jerusalem, demanding back taxes exceeding $190 million.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion has argued that “hotels, halls, and shops cannot be exempt from taxes simply because they are owned by churches”.
How Palestinian Christians are being driven out of Jerusalem
The freezing of church accounts creates a cascading crisis that impacts the very foundation of Christian institutional life in the Holy Land.
Churches cannot pay salaries to clergy, teachers, and support staff, crippling their operations and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of religious workers and their families.
Christian schools serving both Muslim and Christian Palestinian communities face closure, disrupting education for thousands of students and eliminating institutions that have historically provided high-quality education regardless of religious background.
Healthcare and community programs dependent on church funding are jeopardised, leaving vulnerable populations without essential services that churches have traditionally provided to fill gaps in social support.
Perhaps most critically from a global perspective, the maintenance of ancient religious sites and artifacts becomes impossible, threatening irreplaceable cultural heritage that belongs not just to Palestinians but to global Christianity and potentially allowing centuries-old structures and priceless religious artifacts to deteriorate beyond repair.
Church officials emphasise that these demands violate the centuries-old Status Quo agreements that have governed religious sites in Jerusalem since Ottoman times. These agreements, recognised through successive administrations including the British Mandate, Jordanian rule, and even early Israeli control, have traditionally exempted religious institutions from taxation.
The Status Quo is a complex set of arrangements dating to the Ottoman period that defines the rights and responsibilities of different Christian denominations at holy sites. These agreements have been considered inviolable by international law and successive governing authorities.
“This contradicts the Status Quo agreement that has been in place since the Ottoman era in Palestine and continued during the British Mandate years, then the Jordanian era, and even during the Israeli occupation period,” Issa Musleh, an official spokesperson for the Orthodox Church in Palestine, stated.
He added that Israeli authorities had reversed their decision to freeze the church’s funds earlier in October after intervention by institutions, clergy, churches, and Arab and foreign countries.
“We created significant pressure on the occupation state, and now things have returned to what they were before the decision to freeze the bank accounts.”
However, the reversal offers no guarantees regarding future freezes or a return to demanding that the church pay taxes, Musleh said
“Even if Israel pledged, we would not believe them. They want to squeeze everything that is Palestinian, Christian and Muslim, in the Holy Land in order to displace them and push them out of the Holy Land”.
The role of Palestinian Christians in shaping Palestine
Church leaders framed the crisis as part of an existential campaign targeting Palestinian identity in Jerusalem.
“The occupation targets humans, stones, trees, and animals. Today it targets Christians in Jerusalem and church properties, just as it targets churches in Gaza with bombing, destruction, and killing,” Father Talat Awad, pastor of the Church of the Dormition in the West Bank, told The New Arab.
“If a mosque is demolished, Muslims will pray in the church, and if the church cannot serve, Christians will pray in the mosque. We remain steadfast against the occupation,” he added.
Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Youssef contextualised the church targeting within broader Israeli policy.
“This falls within the framework of a comprehensive war against Islamic and Christian holy sites… Israel continues to commit crimes and pays no attention to international law, implementing old plans at an accelerated pace, exploiting international silence and American protection,” Abu Youssef said to The New Arab.
The targeting of churches occurs against a backdrop of dramatic demographic change.
Musleh noted that Christians in Jerusalem represent 0.7 percent of the population due to the dire conditions experienced under Israeli occupation, which have pushed Christians out of the occupied Palestinian territory.
“Christians, like Muslims, are rooted in their land. We will not leave it, and we will not bow except to God,” Musleh added. “Through our steadfastness, we fight to survive. We are advocates of peace and draw this spirit from the call of Christ, the bearer of the message of peace.”
The decline of Palestinian Christianity represents not just a demographic shift but the potential loss of living connections to Christianity’s birthplace. Palestinian Christians are the direct descendants of the earliest Christian communities and maintain traditions, languages, and practices that provide continuity with the apostolic era.
The financial targeting is part of a broader pattern that includes settlement expansion. New settlement outposts near the Orthodox monastery of Saint Gerasimos (Deir Hajla) in Jericho, for example, threaten church lands.
Church officials note that the escalation coincided with church leaders’ vocal criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where several churches have been damaged or destroyed.
Father Joseph Zaher, coordinator of the Council of Churches, told The New Arab that the church is paying the price for positions it took against the war in the Gaza Strip.
“The timing speaks for itself. This attack on the church and Christians is escalating under the current Israeli government, the most extremist,” Zaher noted.
He pointed out that these measures, even if reversed, negatively affect funding and put pressure on the church that threatens its ability to fulfil its obligations.
Furthermore, the temporary nature of international interventions that have twice forced Israeli reversals suggests that without sustained pressure and formal protections, the ancient Christian presence in Palestine faces an uncertain future.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab
