Search results

Ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi, Mission of Palestine to Switzerland; and Doa Nofal, second secretary at the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva, requested an urgent meeting with the World Council of Churches (WCC) to discuss the war in the Holy Land and the current and urgent humanitarian situation.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed both outrage and shock at the news of an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. "Thousands of Palestinians who had lost their homes already were taking refuge at the hospital, run by the Anglican Church,” said WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay. “The attack amounts to collective punishment, which is a war crime under International Law.”

More than 1.1 million Palestinians are struggling to flee from areas of north Gaza targeted by the Israeli military ahead of an expected land offensive a week after Hamas’s bloody attack into Israel. 

The World Council of Churches will join a Day of Prayer and Fasting on 17 October, which will be hosted by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem. 

After an emergency committee of the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem met on 13 October, they urged immediate actions to address the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

At the World Assembly 2023 of the United Bible Societies in October 2023, the secretary general of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Jerry Pillay, and Rev. Dirk Gevers, secretary general of the United Bible Societies, celebrated the long history of cooperation between the organizations.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), in the aftermath of brutal violence where thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives, is calling for a new approach to resolve the conflict in the Holy Land. 

More than 500 people from across the world followed a Service of Lament for Palestine and Israel, hosted by the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center on 12 October.

Church leaders in the Holy Land are raising their voices in unity to call for the cessation of all violent and military activities that bring harm to both Palestinian and Israeli civilians.

Following the outbreak of hostilities on 7 October – with a reported launch of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel and the infiltration of southern Israel by Hamas gunmen, and an ensuing Israeli military response – the World Council of Churches (WCC) is adapting its work in the Holy Land to continue to support efforts for just peace.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is following closely the developments in Israel and Palestine since the outbreak of hostilities on 7 October, following the reported launch of thousands of rockets from Gaza into Israel, and the infiltration of southern Israel by Hamas gunmen. Israel’s prime minister has declared that the country is at war.

During a film screening at the World Council of Churches on 4 October, viewers got a deeper understanding of why Palestinians are about to lose one of the last green spaces left for them in the Bethlehem Governorate.

WCC progamme director for Public Witness and Diakonia Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata was part of a panel reviewing and reflecting on the book "White saviourism in International Development,” by Themrise Khan et al, at the 2023 Gothenburg Book Fair.