Three Palestinians arrested after arson at Jenin church threatens Christian-Muslim unity amid rising West Bank tensions.
Newsroom (30/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) In the early hours of Monday morning, flames tore through a Christmas tree in the courtyard of the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Jenin. By the time worshippers arrived, only the metal skeleton remained, its green plastic branches melted away, while red and gold ornaments lay scattered across the stone tiles—remnants of an attack that has shaken one of the West Bank’s few remaining Christian communities.
Palestinian Authority police said three Palestinians were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of setting the fire and damaging part of the church’s Nativity scene. Investigators identified the suspects using surveillance footage and seized tools allegedly used in the attack. In a statement, police denounced the arson as a deliberate attempt to stoke sectarian tensions in the Israeli-occupied territory.
Within hours of the attack, the church’s caretaker staff cleared the debris and reinstalled a new Christmas tree in time for the Christmas Mass. Local Muslim and Christian leaders gathered for a ceremony the following day—a deliberate show of unity in a city that has seen too much division. Father Amer Jubran, the parish priest, described the arson as an isolated act.
“This occasion reaffirmed that attempts to harm religious symbols will never diminish the spirit of the city nor the faith of its people,” read a statement from the Holy Redeemer Church, which declined further comment.
Jenin’s Christian community, like others across the West Bank, faces immense pressure in an environment of deepening fragmentation and violence. Once a thriving minority, Christians now make up just one to two percent of the territory’s three million people—many having emigrated in recent years as extremism, economic hardship, and political instability erode the security of daily life.
The assault comes amid escalating turmoil across the region. The ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has triggered new waves of bloodshed in the West Bank, where Israeli military raids and clashes with militants have killed hundreds and displaced thousands. Settler assaults on Palestinian villages have surged, paralleled by sporadic Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Israel, which captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, asserts a commitment to religious freedom. Yet church leaders and human rights groups say incidents of harassment against Christians, including vandalism of church properties in Jerusalem and attacks by extremist settlers, have grown increasingly frequent.
Against that backdrop, the Jenin church’s quick rebuilding of its Christmas display became a small but powerful act of resilience—an insistence that coexistence, however fragile, still holds meaning. In a city long known for defiance, the green lights of the new tree glowed again before dawn, a quiet symbol of endurance in a season shadowed by conflict.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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