Israel destroyed Christian presence in Palestine, Church affairs committee says

Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs (HPCCA) in Palestine on Sunday said that Israel has destroyed the Christian presence in Palestine and continues to bomb churches in Gaza. 

The Palestinian governmental body posted a statement on the US social media company Facebook, accompanied by a photo of an Israeli tank outside the Church of the Nativity during the 2002 West Bank incursion.

“In a nearly empty UN General Assembly hall, war criminal and ICC fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu once again spread lies about Palestinian Christians,” the committee said, in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech Friday at the UN General Assembly, in which he claimed Israel is the only state in the Middle East that protects Christians.

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

"Before the 1948 Nakba, Palestinian Christians constituted 12.5% of the historical population of Palestine. Today, there is only 1.2% left in historic Palestine, and only 1% in the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967," the committee said.