The Church of the Cisdre de la Cisjordanie d’Emme of factual allegations, the Israeli police said

Israeli police on Monday rejected reports on Monday alleging that Jewish settlers set fire to the archaeological site of the church of Saint-Georges in the village of Taybeh in the West Bank, calling them “factually incorrect”, lacking evidence and potentially deceptive to the public.

According to police, an investigation was launched last Thursday by a specialized team within the unit of central investigations of Judea and Samaria (Yamar) under the direction of the district commander. An internal committee was also responsible for examining the schedule of events recorded in police information systems, assessing the processing of reports and complaints and evaluating the response.

“The conclusions collected on the ground show unequivocally that no damage or damage has been caused to the sacred site itself,” said the police.

The dispute on the visas of Christian groups in Israel resolved after the threat of Huckabee

An aerial view of Taybeh shows the remains of a fire in a field located next to the Saint-Georges church. (With kind permission: Israeli police)

The declaration noted that a small fire had occurred in an open area near the site, but no building, cultures or infrastructure has been damaged.

On Tuesday, the American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted on X that Taybeh was “a beautiful village made up of Arab Christians mainly. (Israeli police) continue to look for the truth (without) respect for hypotheses. “”

Huckabee also added: “I did not attribute the cause of the fire to a person or a group as we do not know with certainty. The press said it. I said it was, it was (a) crime (and) deserves the consequences.”

An exclusive investigation by the press service of Israel (TPS-IL) first raised questions on the fire, having discovered evidence that local Jewish residents had participated in fire fighting efforts near the church and raised significant doubts about the cause of the fire.

TPS-il has also documented additional fires on July 7, 8 and 11 at Pattreland nearby, located tens of meters from the church complex. In each case, a Jewish farmer with property adjacent to the site filed complaints to the police, claiming that the areas where animals paid had been deliberately fixed.

Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee during a visit to the church in the St. George region, a fire site, during his visit to the west city of Taybeh, east of Ramallah on Saturday July 19, 2025. (AP photo / Nasser Nasser)

Last weekend, Huckabee visited Taybeh, where he called for responsibility. “To commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place which is supposed to be a place of worship, it is an act of terror, and it is a crime,” he said in a statement published by the United States Embassy in Jerusalem. “There should be consequences, and it should be difficult consequences because it is one of the last bastions of our civilization, the places where we love.”

The visit intervened after the Patriarchs’ Council and the Chiefs of Jerusalem published a statement claiming that “the radical Israelis of the neighboring colonies intentionally set fire near the cemetery of the city and the church of Saint George”.

A joint declaration a few days earlier by the priests of the three churches of Taybeh – the Greek Orthodox church, the Greek Catholic church Melkite and the Roman Catholic church – blamed “the Israeli colonists” to “deliberately light (ING) a fire near the cemetery of the city and the historic church of Saint George (Al -Khadr), a site Quintumier-Centenaire and a site of religion in Saint Palestine.

A screenshot shows two Israeli shepherds trying to turn off a fire near the Byzantine church in the Palestinian village of Taybeh on July 7, 2025. (Tps il)

Huckabee demands that Israel “ investigating aggressively on the “murder of Palestinian-American killed in” the terrorist “” ‘

The Greek orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III accused “radical Israelis of the neighboring colonies” of a “targeted attack”.

Dan Diker, president of Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told Fox News Digital that Israel had to adopt a more assertive approach in the treatment of incidents that could have an impact on his international position.

“We are in the midst of the war most consecutive since the foundation of the State, and events like this are just as dangerous,” he said.

He stressed the importance of strengthening the role of Israel in the safeguarding of the Christian heritage and the Holy Sites, in particular in the disputed areas.

“This includes the exposure of the war during the PLO and Hamas against Christian citizens, but it also requires transparency and insurance in the amount of our role of guardians of Christian sites and civilization in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem,” said Diker.

An aerial view showing St. George church on the West Bank. (Tps il)

He also underlined what he described as a coordinated effort of the Palestinian leadership to undermine Israel’s legitimacy on the world scene, especially through the media.

“We are in the midst of an international crusade by the Palestinian leadership to uproot our legitimacy,” he said. “International media have become an ecosystem for the defamation and delegitimation of Israel. They armament each event in an existential aggression.”

On Monday evening, the Binyamin Regional Council, which administers Jewish communities in the south of Samaria, confirmed that the church has not suffered any damage.

“Here, I am on the outskirts of the church. You can see the apse here. And even on the outskirts or the external walls, there is no sign of fire,” said International Council spokesperson Eliana Passetin, in a video.

“We are the guardians of the biblical heart. This earth has been given to us by God-there is no reason for us to burn a church or to disrespect someone else’s religion,” she added.

Addressing Fox News Digital Tuesday, Passentin recalled that he had brought visitors to the local Brasserie in Taybeh, who was so well considered that a rabbi gave him a kosher certification. She noted that the Israelis and Christian Arabs had coexisted peacefully in the region for years, but expressed their concern that the community now identifies with a Palestinian state which does not officially exist.

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“When I was walking, one of Taybeh’s priests said that he believed in the two -state solution and that he had the impression that the AP had a lot of pressure on Christians,” said Passentin.

She suggested that the last crisis was manufactured by those who sought to divide the Jews and the Christians, which she described as joint guards from Judea and Samaria.

“We are looking for peace,” she said. “It is the country of the Bible, and we should build it together – not to fight or propagate false blood defamations accusing the Jews of having burned a church.”