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.
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 WCC’s Seven Weeks for Water Lenten campaign through its ecumenical initiative — Ecumenical Water Network — has gained much attention recently, but the campaign is not new.
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.
Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.
“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.