The firebombing of a church in Jenin and the burning of a Christmas tree and  Nativity Grotto this week have renewed scrutiny of the treatment of Christians under the Palestinian Authority, amid growing claims of harassment, intimidation, and religious intolerance as the Christian population continues to shrink.

The Holy Redeemer Church in Jenin was firebombed, and a Christmas tree was burned down on Monday. That prompted Israel’s Foreign Ministry to tweet, “Under the Palestinian Authority, there is growing hostility toward Christians,” the following day.

“Attacks on Christians, their sites & symbols are unacceptable at all times. Even more so, as we approach Christmas this week,” the ministry added.

Father Amer Jubran, pastor of the church, condemned the attack on behalf of the parishioners of the Latin Monastery of Jenin in a Facebook post, calling it a “deliberate and fabricated act carried out by outlaws” and “shameful and reprehensible.”

He said the attack “has no connection whatsoever to our authentic Palestinian and Christian culture, which is founded on love, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence.”

Jubran emphasized that “such individual acts do not reflect the values and morals of the people of Jenin, nor do they affect its firmly established national and human unity.”

Christmas celebrations in the Palestinian Authority have been muted in the past two years because of the war in Gaza. While the US-brokered ceasefire has led the Palestinian Authority to allow churches to have fuller celebrations, the Press Service of Israel has learned that Christian residents of Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, and Shechem (Nablus) are still not celebrating publicly out of fear of local Muslims.

TPS-IL has also learned that the problem in Beit Jala is exacerbated by Muslim land theft of Christian property.

Christians in both the Palestinian Authority and Gaza face harassment, extortion, forced conversions, and even abductions. TPS-IL reported in 2024 that Christianity is being erased from the Palestinian curriculum.

“This year, since the war in Gaza is supposedly ending, the [Palestinian] Authority decided to market themselves to the international world as those who can manage the lives of Gazans the day after,” Elias Zarina told TPS-IL. Zarina is a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy and a long-time Christian activist.

“They decided to market themselves mainly to the Christian world, to do cosmetics to their image in all sorts of languages, to say that Bethlehem is open to tourists and they are guarding them. In reality, things on the ground are completely different — there are four to five cases of attacks in just a week,” he explained.

Shadi Khalloul told TPS-IL the Palestinian attack on the Jenin church was not surprising. Khalloul, who is founder and CEO of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association, said, “Every year they burn trees. Every year, it’s the same story — whenever Christians celebrate, they threaten them, and claim they disrespect the memory of their terrorists.”

The PA, he explained, presents itself as liberal when it comes to Bethlehem’s Christian community. “They know that the world is looking at it, especially during weeks like this. So there’s security, and they try to present that they are enforcing security and freedom of worship and everything, but in other places like Jenin, where there are small communities, the extremists dominate.”

Dr. Naim Khoury, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bethlehem, painted a different picture.

“The situation is much better, a great improvement, because in the last three years we were not able to celebrate and put up trees and lights in the streets,” Khoury told TPS-IL. “People don’t have much, but they go out for a change, and are psychologically free and seeing celebrations and being happy. Until now we haven’t seen any signs of attacks or problems.”

Asked about Beit Jala, Khoury told TPS-IL, “From what I’ve heard, the story until now is that one side said there was an agreement, and the other side said there wasn’t, and it’s unclear who’s telling the truth,” referring to the issue of Muslim land theft. “Yes they celebrate in Beit Jala, and they light the tree and they celebrate, and this year, it’s like nothing happened in Gaza.”

But Khalloul insisted that Palestinian Christians are under enormous pressure and unable to speak freely. “Just like the Jews in Iran who say that they live well and in good relations but do not dare to raise their heads — and if they dare to talk about Israel they will be beaten. The Christians are trying to drag until there are changes in their favor or until they disappear,” he said.

Said Zarina, “When a church decides to tell the truth about what happened on October 7, the entire community in the Authority territories will automatically be burned. This is the main thing that scares them, that they cannot speak freely.”

While Christians comprised 11% of the population of the entire Holy Land in 1922, today, they account for just 1% of the population in the Palestinian Authority. Christians made up 86% of Bethlehem’s population in 1950. As of 2017, when the last Palestinian census was taken, Christians made up just 10% of the city’s population.

According to Zarina, since the October 7 attack, 142 families emigrated from the Bethlehem governorate.

“They saw Jews being slaughtered in the Gaza area [on October 7, 2023] and it speaks to them directly, because as Christians in the Middle East they experienced it with the rise and takeover of ISIS after the Arab Spring, as did other minority groups such as the Yazidis and Druze. So they see that they have no future in the Palestinian Authority territories.”

To stem the Christian exodus, Zarina called on the Christian world to directly support Palestinian Christians and not the PA or the churches it controls.