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The latest group of World Council of Churches (WCC) ecumenical accompaniers reported incidents between 14 April and 22 May that ranged from violence to displacement, from harassment to intimidation in the West Bank. 

Marking 75 years since Al-Nakba—the Arabic term for the events of 1948, when many Palestinians were displaced from their homeland by the creation of the new state of Israel—religious leaders reflected on what Al-Nakba means today.

"The soldiers went away because you were watching.”

“I am able to herd my sheep near the military base because I feel safe in the presence of ecumenical accompaniers, and settler harassment is much less when you are around.”

“We feel safe when the ecumenical accompaniers are present.”

For the 380,000 Palestinians that live in East Jerusalem, daily life is often marred by inequalities related to everything from housing, health services, childcare, and even garbage pickup. Even though Palestinians make up 39% of the city, there are many discrepancies in the services they receive.

Dr Jad Issac tends to think in numbers. When it comes to the land in the West Bank on the outskirts of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley—known simply as E1— Issac is weighing a stark figure: a loss of $2 billion a year for Palestinians versus the ability to net the same amount of revenue, pay off debts, and, in turn, help poorer countries.  The astronomical figure amounts to lost tourism opportunities due to the lack of access to E1, Jordan Valley, and the Dead Sea—as per the Economic Cost of the Occupation Study done by the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.

Alexander Brock, an international development practitioner from Ireland, recently returned from a deployment with the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. On 1 March, he gave an eyewitness account of what it’s like to monitor human rights in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. He was part of a group of 27 ecumenical accompaniers from all over the world. 

Hanna Barag, an Israeli woman who has described herself as a “human rights diplomat” for the organization Machsom Watch, has spent decades observing what happens to Palestinians at checkpoints, and it’s—in a word—“de-humanizing,” she says.

As search-and-rescue continued in Turkey and Syria following a massive earthquake, churches mobilized to offer humanitarian aid and prayers.

A group of Ecumenical Accompaniers completed their service in Palestine and Israel, handing their ministry over to the next wave, and celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the same time.

In 1919, three Armenian families—the Balian, Karakeshian, and Ohanessian families—were brought to Jerusalem by Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs, then military governor of Jerusalem, to renovate the 16th century tiles at the Dome of the Rock in Al-Aqsa Mosque. 

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.