By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor Saturday, June 06, 2026Israeli soldiers stop and inspect a Palestinian vehicle at a temporary checkpoint near the entrance to Birzeit University, north of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Feb. 23, 2026. | Mohammad Nazzal/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Israeli forces arrested Natalie Abu Dayyeh, 21, a Palestinian Christian student and international soccer player, in a pre-dawn raid on student housing near Birzeit University in the West Bank this week, drawing condemnation from her church, her university and Palestinian football authorities.

Abu Dayyeh was taken at gunpoint from her apartment alongside three other Palestinian women, according to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.

The Israeli military said the four women were detained on suspicion of “promoting terrorist activities,” according to Vatican News.

Abu Dayyeh is a media and journalism student at Birzeit University, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Beit Jala, and a graduate of Talitha Kumi Lutheran School. She also plays for Diyar Women and has represented the Palestinian national women’s soccer team at youth and senior levels.

As of Saturday, Abu Dayyeh had not been released.

She had brief contact with a lawyer, but neither her family nor legal counsel had been permitted to visit her, and her family wasn't told where she was being held, the ELCJHL said. The church said it doesn't know how the situation will proceed.

A second Palestinian international footballer was detained separately.

Rand Al Halawani, 20, was summoned to the Talpiot police station in West Jerusalem and subsequently held, according to The National, and an Israeli court extended her detention until next Friday.

The Palestine Football Association condemned both arrests, saying they were “part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability.”

The association said Palestinian athletes are routinely denied freedom of movement and the basic right to compete under equal conditions, rights that FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, explicitly guarantees to all players without discrimination. It called on FIFA and the international sporting community to take “concrete disciplinary action” over alleged ongoing violations.

ELCJHL Bishop Imad Haddad called for Abu Dayyeh’s immediate release and said she now joins “thousands of Palestinians in Israeli detention without charge or trial.” Palestinian civilians, including women and children, are often held for months or years without explanation under Israeli military detention, the bishop said.

Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan, manager of the Save West Bank Christians campaign, told Vatican News the case was “not an isolated incident.” He pointed to Layan Naser, another Christian student at Birzeit University, who has been arrested three times in recent years and was sentenced to eight months in prison for university activism.

“Natalie Abu Dayyeh may now be on the same path,” Hassan said.

Birzeit University also condemned the arrests as part of Israel’s “systematic policies targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to continue their academic journey.”

The university has been the site of prior Israeli military operations; in January, Israeli troops entered the campus and fired tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition.

Violence in the West Bank has intensified since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, with Israeli forces conducting widening operations across the territory.