.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp&trim=43%2C218%2C58%2C183&ssl=1 "The West Bank brewery battling Israeli blocks to export rare Palestinian beer to the UK")
In a grainy black-and-white security video, three masked, club-wielding figures smash up a grey car on a residential street.
It was 7.40pm on a quiet Tuesday evening in the Christian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, around 10 miles by road to the bustling administrative capital of Ramallah.
Nadim Khoury, the 65-year-old founder of the West Bank’s first brewery situated in the town, says his family has lived there for 600 years. “There is no way that I will go anywhere,” he says undaunted, speaking the day after the car attack.
But settler attacks are just one of a number of obstacles, including Israeli export controls and a heavily-damaged tourist industry, which have led to a 70 per cent collapse in sales of Taybeh beer since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent military campaigns.
“Doing business in Palestine,” explains Nadim, “is not like doing business in any other part of the world”.
He started brewing beer in a Boston dorm room in the US in 1982 and set up the brewery with his brother, David, in 1994, located in the West Bank’s only all-Christian town.
It is now run by his daughter Madees Khoury, the Middle East’s only female brewmaster.
In recent years, sales among locals have dropped significantly. Palestinians have been financially squeezed since October 7, with tens of thousands having their working permits in Israel revoked.
The region’s tourist sector, which Nadim says is how they gain most of their business, has also been ravaged as a result.
In spring 2024, the Palestinian tourism ministry said an average of 278,000 tourists per month visited the West Bank and East Jerusalem between January and October 2023. In the months following, numbers plummeted to less than one per cent.
Tourism has partially recovered but numbers are still lower than before, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).
Taybeh’s exports, including to Britain, Germany, France, the US and Canada, have become increasingly important – but its efforts are hampered by Israeli checkpoint delays, permit requirements, and restricted road use for Palestinians.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there are 849 “movement obstacles” in place in the West Bank as of May 2025.
Palestinians are often stranded for hours when roads are closed, with the agency stating Israeli restrictions “entrench territorial and social fragmentation, and contribute to worsening humanitarian conditions”.
