📝JOURNALS FROM JERUSALEM - "Justice for our people, justice for our land, and justice for our olive trees."

⛪On 18th January, the Holy Land Coordination travelled to Taybeh to join the parish community of Christ of the Redeemer. Mass was celebrated in Arabic by Bishop Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, Chair of the Committee on International Justice & Peace at United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

🕊️During the Offertory local children brought forward the gifts along with a peace lamp that was placed before the altar. It symbolised our shared prayers and hopes for peace and healing for all people in Palestine and Israel.

📰Numerous news outlets, including Vatican News, have reported a surge in settler violence in Taybeh, forcing residents to live under constant fear and intimidation. Following Mass, the Bishops and those accompanying them met with members of the parish to listen first-hand to the hardships they are enduring. Many people stood up to recount incidents of cars being set alight, homes and property vandalised, and community members assaulted or threatened.

🫒One woman spoke of her family’s land, where they grow olive trees. In order to protect it they erected a fence last year. Recently settlers removed the fence, entered the land, and took down the trees. When she was asked what we could do for her, she gave an emotional response that echoed the pleas of many in Taybeh:
“Seek justice for our people, justice for our land, and justice for our olive trees.”

✝️To seek justice and peace for everyone in this land must begin with telling the stories of injustice experienced by those who live there. Taybeh is the last fully Christian town in the West Bank. While the injustices we heard about on Sunday affect many Palestinians, regardless of faith, the people of Taybeh hold a particular significance for Christians around the world. They are the "living stones": a living link between the places associated with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the worldwide Church he founded. As another parishioner shared, speaking of the fear caused by settlement expansion:
“If we lose our land, you lose the living stones.”

🙏We pray for the people of Taybeh, for the protection of their land, their livelihoods, and their dignity; and we pray for a just and lasting peace for all throughout the Holy Land.

📸Image credit: Marcin Mazur - Catholic Bishops' Conference (England and Wales).