People & History
“Out of God’s sovereignty I believe that good will come out of all this. God knows what is going on and he will bring about a just peace and something good, even if we as human beings can’t see it yet; and, even though Palestinians have been waiting for a very long time,” says Anglican Palestinian Randa
Justice & Advocacy
“With the relentless bombing in Gaza, I think about the future of the young Palestinians there if they do live. More than 16,000 of the 40,000 people killed in Gaza are children. However, even surviving this statistic as a young person in Gaza means living in constant fear of being killed, grief from loss of family and friends and displacement from your home with no protection or safe place to go,” says a secondary school student and St Andrew’s, Indooroopilly parishioner
“As a doctor, it is amazing to see how efficiently resources are mobilised here in Australia when an unwell or injured child comes into our emergency departments…But no resources are accessible to Palestinian children in Gaza — hospitals have been intentionally destroyed and humanitarian medical aid intentionally blocked. Children in Gaza are being left to die hungry and in pain. Why? Because Israel and its allies deem it acceptable since these children were born Palestinian. As a Palestinian and as a doctor my heart breaks every day I am unable to stop this from happening to my people,” says Dr Ahmad Abou-Sweid
During the 75th commemoration of what Palestinians refer to as the nakba, or “catastrophe”—when hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted during Israel’s creation in 1948—World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary The Rev’d Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay expressed solidarity with member churches in the Holy Land
“Shawarma is from the Arab-Middle East region, but a recent major tour company promotion described the shawarma as an Israeli delicacy. This is a far cry from the friendly tussle between Australia and New Zealand over pavlova!” says Helen Rainger, General Synod member and President of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Network
“One of my favourite memories of my time studying for the priesthood at St Francis Theological College in Brisbane in the mid-1990s was sitting on the steps drinking a XXXX beer…while listening to Palestinian music on CD and looking up at the stars,” says Palestinian priest The Rev’d Hanna Dally, who has a special invitation for Australian Anglican churches
Get some soul in your inbox
Thank you for subscribing