On the road going down from Zababdeh
November 03, 2026
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead”
—so Jesus begins the parable of the Good Samaritan, according to Luke 10:25.
Roads were dangerous places in Biblical times, even in an empire like Rome, renowned for building these wonders of ancient engineering. We’d like to think that roads in the twenty-first century Holy Land would be much safer than they were in Jesus’s day. Unfortunately, for many Palestinians, traveling inside the occupied West Bank can lead to life-threatening encounters with Israeli soldiers or armed paramilitary settlers.
Early this September, Palestinian priest Fr. Firas Khoury (or Abouna Firas, as his flock calls him) shared the harrowing story of his own recent journey from his hometown Zababdeh to the nearby city of Jenin. His story reminds us that providing basic pastoral care in the Palestinian territories involves not just surmounting administrative roadblocks (both literal and metaphorical) but also confronting the violence of the Israeli occupation at its rawest.
Zababdeh, where Abouna Firas lives, is a remarkable town in the northern West Bank. Like most rural Palestinians, the roughly 4,000 people who call Zababdeh their home make a living raising olives, chickpeas, okra, and tobacco. However, what sets them apart from their neighbors is that they are the only Palestinian community north of Nablus (the Biblical city of Shechem) where Christians make up an overwhelming majority–roughly two out of every three residents. Most Christians here belong to the Roman Catholic Church, but there are smaller numbers of Greek Orthodox, Greek Melkite Catholic, and Anglican Christians as well.
Fr. Khoury is the priest at St. George’s Greek Melkite Catholic Church. Abouna Firas is proud of his family’s long history of service to the church and his own role in helping to revive it. Previously, his grandfather had served as the town priest for forty-five years (Yes, priests in eastern Christian churches are encouraged to have families!). However, for almost eighteen years–from the time his grandfather died in 1985 until Firas was ordained a priest in 2002–there had been no active Melkite church in Zababdeh. The bishop who oversees this region (a diocese bearing the evocative name “Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, and All of Galilee”) told the congregation that until Firas graduated seminary, there would be no replacement priest. On Easter Sunday in 2003, Abouna Firas reopened St. George’s Church and has faithfully served the approximately twenty or so Melkite Catholic families in Zababdeh ever since.
St. George’s abouna is quite poetic, describing his vision of Christian mission in the Holy Land: “I believe that the presence of the Church in this land is not simply a presence of stones and buildings. It is a living presence of people, prayer, hope, and service.” Living out that mission often requires this small-town priest to venture beyond the safety of welcoming Zababdeh.
After celebrating Mass on Sunday, September 20, Fr. Khoury traveled by car to the city of Jenin, just ten kilometers to the north. There he visited the local hospital (the closest to Zababdeh), offering Communion to patients and praying for the sick. His journey to Jenin and back resounds with Biblical echoes.
Abouna Firas is well aware of the significance of the road he travels: “Jesus walked these roads. He was born in this land and lived among its people. The Apostles were not strangers…they walked this land and preached the Gospel here. In a very deep sense, we see them as our ancestors in faith. The Marys whom we read about in the Gospel are, to us, like our grandmothers. And the places whose names we read in the Bible are not simply names in an ancient book; they are part of the land where we live.”
Jenin in Biblical times was known as Ginae, a Samaritan town on the border with Galilee. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Galilean Jews would pass through Ginae every year as they made pilgrimages to Jerusalem to celebrate holy days. Biblical commentators speculate that Jesus and his disciples would have taken the same route. Given animosity between Jews and Samaritans in the first century, such pilgrimages were not without their risks.
While in Jesus’s parable, it was the Good Samaritan who helped the man left for dead on the road to Jericho, Josephus provides an account more in line with what Jesus’s audience probably expected to hear. In his history, Antiquities, Josephus recounts how a Galilean Jew was killed by angry Samaritans while passing through Ginae on his way to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot. This incident led to an outbreak of intra-communal violence in AD 51. Today, the road from Jenin to Zababdeh holds similar perils for those Palestinians who travel.
Since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s war on Gaza which followed, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have also increased. Fr. Khoury reports that in the past few years, there have been far more security checkpoints on the road to Jenin, and it is common to encounter Israeli soldiers, making travel “exhausting and, at times, unsafe.” Part of the reason Palestinians in Zababdeh are experiencing this heightened military presence is due to the growing number of Israeli settlers nearby.
In the 1980s, the Jewish extremist Betar Movement founded two settlements on the road between Zababdeh and Jenin: Ganim to the east and Kadim to the west. These were dismantled in 2005 as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank. But just last December, the security cabinet approved the reestablishment of Ganim. In August, a series of caravans rolled back into the old outpost, marking the return of settlers to the area. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich heralded this occasion by proclaiming, “Samaria is ours. It is an inseparable part of the Land of Israel—the security belt of the State of Israel…Today, we are strengthening the security belt, killing the idea of a Palestinian state and making clear that the Land of Israel is ours forever.”
Since then, Abouna Firas recounts, “We have witnessed incidents involving settlers and soldiers in the area…Settlers and soldiers are now entering Zababdeh almost daily.” He fears that this will only get worse, as it is rumored that the former settlement of Kadim will also soon be reoccupied. Indeed, the Israeli media reports that the security council is expected to approve the reestablishment of Kadim very soon. If that were to happen, the roads are likely to become even less hospitable for Palestinians.
On his return from Jenin, Fr. Khoury noticed “new iron gates installed on the roads around us.” Such barriers have become a frustrating part of daily life since 2023, making it difficult for people in Zababdeh “to reach their work, schools, hospitals, and even nearby towns.” But this day was different.
“On our way back to Zababdeh, there was random gunfire by settlers, and two Palestinians were killed.” This attack made Al Jazeera news. However, the Israelis who opened fire told reporters they did so because the Palestinians were about to run over them with their car. This official statement sounds eerily like the explanation given by the ICE agents after the killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis in January 2026.
Back in Zababdeh, after this stressful journey, Fr. Khoury noticed fresh graffiti written on some of the nearby concrete road blocks. These read, “There is no future for you here.”
Indeed, with unemployment on the rise as well as the cost of food, medical care, education, and other basic goods having also gone up, families in Zababdeh have been struggling to make ends meet. St. George’s Church has done its best to respond by encouraging locals to learn to make olive-oil soap, olive-wood crafts, and beeswax candles and helping them sell these on the international market.
Despite these hard times, Abouna Firas remains hopeful. “Our hope is not because we are blind to reality,” he explains. “We see it every day. Our hope comes from Christ, from the Resurrection, and from our belief that life is stronger than death…As Christians, we cannot accept that fear and death should have the final word.”
“Please tell people that behind the headlines there is a living community here,” he implores, “Families, children, farmers, students, elderly people–ordinary people who simply want to remain on their land and live in peace.”
A Prayer for Travelers:
O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole
creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve
those who travel. In particular, those on the road from Zababdeh;
Surround them with your loving care;
protect them from every danger;
and bring them in safety to their journey’s end;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Wickersham is an Ambassador Warren Clark Fellow. He recently completed his PhD in history at the University of Arizona and holds an MA in Middle East studies from the University of Chicago. His research examines the nineteenth and early twentieth century demographic history of the Ottoman Empire, with a focus on immigration, refugee resettlement, and religious minority communities. He is the co-author, along with Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, of A Faithful Remnant: A Story of Resilience, which explores the history, beliefs, culture, and current events surrounding the Christian communities of the Middle East.