Presidential committee for churches: Israel has destroyed Christian presence in Palestine

The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine said on Sunday that Israel has destroyed the Christian presence in Palestine and continues to bomb churches and their institutions during what it described as a war of extermination in the Gaza Strip.

The statement was published on the committee’s official Facebook page and included a photo showing an Israeli tank in front of the Church of the Nativity during the invasion of the West Bank in 2002.

The committee issued the statement in response to remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech at the United Nations on Friday, in which he claimed that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that protects Christians.

The committee said: “In a nearly empty UN General Assembly Hall, war criminal and ICC fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu once again spread lies about Palestinian Christians.”

It added: “The truth is clear: Israel’s colonial policies of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide have destroyed the Christian presence in Palestine.”

The committee also explained that “before the Nakba of 1948, Palestinian Christians comprised 12.5 per cent of the population in historic Palestine (the West Bank, including Jerusalem, Gaza and Israel). Today, only 1.2 per cent remain in historic Palestine, and just 1 per cent in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.”