Sabeel Wave of Prayer: Week of Sept. 6, 2021

This week’s Kumi Now online gathering looked at Education Funding and Policy in Israel/ Palestine. Next week’s Kumi Now on Tuesday, the 7th of September, will focus on the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The Israeli occupation has stunted the growth of Bethlehem. It is ringed by twenty illegal Israeli settlements, divided by settler-only roads, overshadowed by the separation wall, disfigured by watchtowers, barbed wire and checkpoints. Much of its land has been confiscated and restrictions of movement have curtailed its tourist industry.

• Lord Jesus, your humble birth in Bethlehem reminds us of the need for shelter and care for young families. We pray for the children and families struggling to survive in Bethlehem under the heavy hand of the Israeli occupation. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers.

A group of Palestinian tour guides have launched some new half-day tours. The tours have been developed earlier this year during the pandemic through a Sabeel project. The first tour, on Saturday, the 4th of September, took 35 tourist guides to different mountains to view Jerusalem from the four points of the compass.

• Lord, we pray that tour guides will plan creative and sustainable ways to rebuild their livelihoods in the Holy Land. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayer.

After international pressure was brought to bear on the Israeli authorities, they decided to release a Palestinian mother from prison. Anhar al-Deek is in her ninth month of pregnancy and had asked the authorities to allow her to give birth outside prison. She was released on a 40-thousand-shekel bail and house arrest in her family home.

• Lord, we pray for the safe confinement of Anhar. We pray that she may be granted time to recover from the birth of her baby and to spend time with her young daughter. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers.

There are a number of conferences being hosted by Friends of Sabeel/Kairos in different countries during the months of September and October.

• Canadian Friends of Sabeel will hold an ecumenical dialogue entitled ‘Whose Land, Whose Promise? Palestine, Justice and the Bible’ on the 18th of September and the 2nd of October.
• Kairos Palestine Norway will hold a webinar about the present situation in Palestine on Sunday, the 19th of September at 6pm Palestine time.
• Friends of Sabeel, Germany will show ‘The People’s Patriarch’ about Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah, on Friday, the 24th of September at 6pm.

The U.K. Friends of Sabeel Conference takes place on Saturday, the 25th of September from 10:30-1pm. The main speaker is Jonathan Kuttab, Christian International Human Rights Lawyer and executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA). Please click here to register.

• Lord, our God, it is you who lights our lamp and lightens our darkness, (Psalm18:28). We pray that the words spoken at these Sabeel/ Kairos conferences around the world will shed the light of truth on the dark situation for Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers.

Fourteen members of the Palestinian Authority security forces will be charged for allegedly beating to death, opposition figure Nizar Banat in late June. Nizar Banat was abducted from his cousin’s house on the 24th of June by members of the Palestinian security apparatus, who had beaten him severely. On his arrival at the hospital in Hebron, twenty minutes later, he was pronounced dead.

• Lord, we pray for the widow of Nizar and his five children as they mourn his loss. We pray that the Palestinian Authority will thoroughly investigate any wrongful abduction or unlawful violence which their representatives may have carried out against Nizar. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers.

On Friday, the 3rd of September, Israeli soldiers arrested seven Palestinians in the Ramallah area. Three brothers in the village of Rantis, northwest Ramallah were among those who were arrested. According to Addameer, the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organisation more than 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967, (about 20% of the Palestinian population).

• Lord, we pray for an end to the new wave of Israeli arrests being carried out on the Palestinian population to crush their resistance. We pray for an end to the occupation and for the establishment of justice for all the people of the land. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers
• We join with the World Council of Churches in their prayers for the countries of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo. Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayers.