The head of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has appealed to its members around the world to demonstrate their solidarity with churches in Gaza through prayers and advocacy.
Trouble flared up in the region again on Wednesday when tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt from the Gaza Strip after a border wall was blown up by militants. From there, the crowds scrambled to Egyptian shops where they stocked up on food, fuel and other basic items in short supply as a result of an Israeli blockade.
In a letter issued on Wednesday, the General Secretary of the WCC, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, urged the ecumenical body’s 347 member churches worldwide to pray for an end to the suffering in Gaza, which has come under increasing scrutiny in the international media.
Dr Kobia also pressed WCC member churches to speak up on behalf of people in Gaza to their national governments.
"Address your parishes, the public, your governments and the embassies, calling for an end to the siege, an end to their collective punishments and a negotiated ceasefire,” wrote Dr Kobia.
He suggested that WCC members demonstrate their solidarity with churches in Palestine by writing to them with messages of comfort or by supporting local churches and church-related agencies like Action by Churches Together that are working on the ground to care for the most vulnerable.
WCC member church heads in Jerusalem and the Holy Land issued a statement on Tuesday in which they called on the international community and the state of Israel to end the blockade, which has left hundreds of thousands without electricity and hampered the delivery of medicine, fuel, food and other vital goods into Gaza.
