Sabeel Wave of Prayer
27th of October 2022
Next week’s Kumi Now will focus on the
topic of Islamophobia. Over recent times there has been a rise in hate crimes
against Muslims, as well as attempts in
the Western media to link all Muslims with violent extremism. Not all
Palestinians are Muslims and most Muslims never engage in any forms of violence
and yet propaganda in the press is being used to present Palestinians as Muslim
terrorists.
•
Lord, we pray that
we will all show respect for the humanity of those living in our
communities who come from a different ethnic background or practice a different
religion. Give us the courage to challenge prejudice and racism whenever we
hear it expressed. Lord, in your mercy..
Shadi Khoury, a 16-year-old pupil at
the Quaker Friends’ School in Ramallah and grandson of Sabeel’s co-founder,
Samia Khoury, was kidnapped in the early hours of
Friday, the 18th of October, by
Israeli occupation forces. He was beaten, blindfolded and dragged away from his
home by twelve Israeli soldiers and security agents. He was taken for interrogation to the ‘Russian compound’.
•
Lord God, we raise our voices together with Shadi’s
grandmother Samia as she cries out, ’Until when will this grave injustice go
on?’. We pray that Shadi may be swiftly released from prison and restored to
his family. We pray for an end to the injustices perpetrated daily on the
Palestinian people and their children by the Israeli occupation forces. Lord,
in your mercy..
•
Lord, we give thanks for the newly elected Chairman of
Friends of Sabeel, Sweden and remember with gratitude the service of the
outgoing Chairman, Kenneth Kimming. Lord, in your mercy..
The Israeli Prison Service imposed a
ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, the 2nd of October. The
Prisoners’ Affairs Commission have contacted the International Committee of the
Red Cross to ask for their assistance in calling for a reinstatement of family
visits for humanitarian reasons. According to Addameer there are currently
4,700 Palestinian political prisoners, including 400 children, and 800
Palestinians placed on administrative detention orders.
•
Lord, we pray that Palestinian prisoners will be able to
see their relatives again and pray especially for Palestinian child prisoners,
those imprisoned for years without charge, for those kept in solitary
confinement. Lord, in your mercy…
Last week Father Albert Nolan died
peacefully in his sleep at the age of 88 years. He was a Dominican priest and
theologian and was fully engaged in the struggle against apartheid in South
Africa. In 1973 he became the National Chaplain of the Catholic Federation of
Students and gave guidance and support to young Catholics committed to opposing
apartheid. He was working at the Institute for Contextual Theology in
Johannesburg in 1985 when the Kairos document was published, which helped to
unite many churches to take a stand against apartheid.
•
Lord, we give thanks for the life and testimony of Father
Albert. May the courage and commitment he showed through the dark days of the
end of apartheid in South Africa remain an inspiration to us all. Lord, in your
mercy..
By Thursday, the 20th of October, the
city of Nablus had been kept under siege conditions for ten consecutive days by
the Israeli army after one of their soldiers was killed near an illegal
settlement. The army set up checkpoints at every road leading into the city and
closed the roads using iron gates and dirt mounds. There have been calls for
Nablus residents to take part in peaceful marches to the Israeli checkpoints to
call for the end of the siege.
•
Lord, we pray for an end to the Israeli military siege of
Nablus. We pray that any peaceful protest marches that are organised stay
peaceful and do not lead to any further escalation in violence. Lord, in your
mercy..
Last week Israeli settlers attacked
the volunteers helping Ibrahim Ibayyat, a Palestinian farmer as he was
harvesting his olive crop in the village
of Kisan, east of Bethlehem.
The settlers attacked local and
foreign volunteers, stabbing one of them in the back and breaking her leg. They
uprooted more than three hundred olive saplings and sprayed the mature trees with incendiary chemical
pesticides.
•
Lord, so many Palestinian families depend on the income
from their olives for their livelihood and now have to risk their lives to
gather in this essential crop. We pray that international governments and
organisations will challenge the Israeli government for supporting settlers who
commit brutal attacks on Palestinian farmers and their helpers. Lord, in your
mercy…
Don Wagner travelled to Palestine last
week to launch his memoir, which is entitled,
‘Glory to God in the Lowest: Journey
to an Unholy Land’. The first book launch took place at the Wi’am Center: The
Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center in Bethlehem and the second launch
was held in the American Colony in Jerusalem.
•
Lord, we give thanks for Don Wagner’s life of activism for
Palestinian rights. We pray that many people will be encouraged by his memoir
to engage with the Palestinian struggle against injustice and to come and see
for themselves how Palestinians are forced to live under the Israeli
occupation. Lord, in your mercy.
•
We join with the World Council of Churches in their prayers
for the countries of The Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas,
Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti,
Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Sint Maarten, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and
the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago. Lord in your mercy…
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