Bethlehem Update: Bypassed by the UN, Trapped by Conflict

Our ministry team in Bethlehem recently investigated claims by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) that it supplies food to 1.6 million Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank. After interviewing local Christian pastors, charity leaders, and residents across Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Beit Sahour, our findings were clear: not a single Christian family receives food aid from the UN.

While demanding hundreds of millions in Western tax dollars, the UN operates out of a secure compound in Jerusalem. Their aid distribution is funneled through local mosques and Islamic networks, completely bypassing the dwindling Christian minority.

Because international institutions ignore our brothers and sisters, our project, Heart for the Persecuted Church, delivers direct food assistance to vulnerable Christian families.

Many of these households care for family members with severe, permanent disabilities. We also support shelters like Home of God’s Child, which provides sanctuary for handicapped and abandoned Christian children.

Conditions on the ground have reached a critical point. Over two years of total collapse in tourism have stripped away Christian livelihoods in hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops. Families cannot pay for food, water, utilities, or tuition. Prices for basic necessities continue to soar as local suppliers exploit shortages.

Compounding this crisis, major military operations between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian militants in July and August have led to widespread closures across the West Bank.

Israel has installed new checkpoints, gates, and earth mounds, effectively sealing off Christian communities.

Lockdowns caused by clashes are so severe that even emergency ambulances carrying critical medical patients are blocked at military checkpoints for Israel soldiers to check for weapons. Working parents cannot reach jobs in neighboring cities, and families are trapped inside their neighborhoods sometimes for days.

Please pray for an end to the conflict near Christian areas!

Without tourism, ignored by UN aid programs, and now physically locked down by regional conflict, Bethlehem’s Christians face an existential threat. If we do not stand in the gap, even more Christian families will be forced to abandon the birthplace of Jesus forever.

Through Heart for the Persecuted Church and the Religious Freedom Coalition, we remain committed to keeping the Christian presence alive where the Gospel first began. Please keep these precious families in your prayers and consider supporting our Holy Land programs.