Taybeh (a small Palestinian Christian town of roughly 1,200 residents in the occupied West Bank, traditionally identified with the biblical site of Ephraim) is facing an escalating wave of settler violence that residents say has shattered years of relative calm. Armed settlers have torched vehicles and farm equipment, seized private agricultural land and water sources, set fires near ancient churches, and in one case stormed a local stone quarry in a group of 30 to 40 people — raising Israeli flags and destroying infrastructure — forcing the owner to abandon a business worth an estimated $5 million. With approximately seven settler outposts now surrounding the town, including a new one established in the past week on land nominally under Palestinian civil administration, residents say complaints to Israeli authorities have gone unanswered, leaving families to guard their own homes with fire extinguishers while the town's centuries-old Christian community faces the prospect of being driven from its land.