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.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee, convening from 17-20 May, set a tone of hope for the future while, at the same time, addressing multiple global crises with statements, pastoral messages, and calls for prayer.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) made a positive impact at the 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, held 24 June through 12 July.
The WCC has a long history of engagement with the United Nations human rights system, in witnessing and advocating for human dignity and justice on behalf of the worldwide ecumenical movement.
For Hind Khoury the issue of water justice is quite simple. She believes there is no water justice in Palestine because access to clean water for drinking and sanitation exists in Israel but not in the Palestinian territories it occupies.
On the world scale of countries with plentiful water, Brazil comes out in the top league. It has 12 percent of the world’s fresh water supplies. Yet Magali do Nascimento Cunha does not see her country scoring so well when it comes to water and sanitation distribution.
A water crisis for Palestinian people was highlighted by the general secretary of the WCC, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, at the launch of the Seven Weeks for Water campaign in Jerusalem.
The recent air strikes by Israel on the Gaza Strip have crippled the water distribution system. Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network of the WCC, shares that an already challenging water situation in Gaza has recently worsened because of the violence, threatening the fundamental human right to water and sanitation.
“The Palestinian people thirst for water justice.” So claims a recently issued statement by a fact-finding group that this month visited Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza to better understand the critical issues of water and sanitation in Palestine.
