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לסמיה* בת העשרים ושש שנולדה בגדה המערבית אין תעודת זהות – לא פלסטינית ולא ישראלית. הייתה לה פעם תעודת זהות ירושלמית בזכות אביה, אבל היא בוטלה. על הביטול נודע לה כשהייתה בת 16 וחשבה שיש לה הזדמנות לנסוע לשווייץ עם בית הספר שבו למדה. היא לא יכלה לנסוע. מאז, סמיה ומשפחתה נאבקות לקבל חזרה את תעודת הזהות הירושלמית שלה.

Twenty-six-year-old Samyah* has no ID card—not Palestinian or Israeli. Born in the West Bank, she once had a Jerusalem ID card after her father but it was revoked. She found out about the revocation when she was 16 and thought had the opportunity to travel with her school to Switzerland. She could not travel. Since then, Samyah and her family have been struggling to regain her Jerusalem ID card.

Here comes the bride. Donned in a wedding gown, Ribhieh Rajabi is walking over a pile of rubble in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem. She’s surrounded by family, friends, journalists, and even strangers who came to show solidarity.

Im Omar—as named after her eldest son—mother of six, must scrape every day for something most people take for granted: water. For her, water is scarce—and it’s directly connected to her family’s livelihood. 

Church leaders in the Philippines gathered in an ecumenical memorial service in Manila on 21 September, the 50^th anniversary of the imposition of martial law, to solemnly recall people of faith who were tortured and killed during the brutal regime of president Ferdinand Marcos.

When the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, churches had already been responding to humanitarian need in the country for eight years, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.  The work being undertaken by churches in meeting the needs of those displaced by the war is not new, but the scale is staggering as 14 million people have been displaced in the six months since the invasion began.

Fourteen-year-old Muhammad lives in Qalandia, a Palestinian community on the outskirts of Jerusalem that is partially within the city boundaries. 

It’s not easy to be a youth leader in the Holy Land. “Our youth have a need to recognize God’s calling in their lives,” explained Nadine Bitar, general secretary of Christian Youth in Palestine, a group that supports youth leaders in the homeland of Jesus.

During the recent solidarity visit to Ukraine, a World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation was welcomed at the Banchen monastery in the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine, witnessing its active involvement supporting and sheltering victims of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca visited Syria, alongside the Middle East Council of Churches secretary general Dr Michel Abs, the general secretary of ACT Alliance Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, and WCC senior advisor on peace building Michel Nseir.

As a six-year-old boy, Abu El Walid Dajani began helping his father manage the New Imperial Hotel near Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem. The historic property is owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, and leased before 1967 to the Dajani family to run as a hotel.  Now 77, Dajani has become the manager. But the threat of eviction is derailing a way of life his family has known for generations.

Sharing the concerns of World Council of Churches (WCC) Lutheran member churches around the world, a Lutheran confessional meeting took place during the recent central committee meeting at the Ecumenical Center in Geneva.

Um Ismail, in her 50s, loves her children fiercely and wholly, as mothers do all over the globe. But for Um Ismail, who lives in the Khan Al-Ahmar Bedouin community, finding enough water for her ten children plunges the family daily into near catastrophe.