21/4/11 - English

As Sunday was Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, we remember current political prisoners and the over 700,000 Palestinians who have been detained by Israeli authorities since 1967, about 20% of the total Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, many without charges or trials. In commemoration of this day, 6,000 Palestinian prisoners launched a one-day hunger strike to protest Israeli measures and internal Palestinian divisions. We pray for an end to this devastating tactic of arrests and for prisoners, their families and communities who are forced to face it on a daily basis.

We pray for the family, friends and wider community whose lives were touched by last week’s murder of two men who dedicated their lives to justice and peace. Juliano Mer-Khamis, son of a Palestinian-Israeli Christian father and Jewish-Israeli mother and founder of Jenin Refugee Camp’s Freedom Theatre in the West Bank, was shot by a masked man in Jenin, while Vittorio Arrigoni, a prominent International Solidarity Movement activist, was hanged by a radical Salafist group in Gaza. May their lives motivate us all in the work for justice and peace in Palestine.

Our prayers are with our Jewish brothers and sisters remembering the anguish of slavery and the release from oppression by God’s hand with Passover. We pray that remembering this past will open ears to current cries for freedom from the oppressive Israeli occupation, which during festivals like Passover causes even more suffering with actions such as the military “general closure” of the West Bank.

We pray for Christians in Jerusalem and around the world as we celebrate Holy Week and Easter. We especially remember the many Palestinian Christians who face great difficulties to obtain special permits to cross Israeli checkpoints, which are especially slow or even closed due to Passover, in order to worship in East Jerusalem, and those who are denied permits and so cannot come to celebrations in East Jerusalem. We pray for a time where all people can freely access and worship in their holy places.

With the Prayer Cycle of the World Council of Churches, we pray for: Djibouti, Somalia