United Network for Justice & Peace in Palestine & Israel

Latest News and Activities

Follow this page for updates on Palestinian news and actions.

Canada's responsibility towards Palestine under International Law:
A Dialogue at Parliament Hill

A recording of the event organized by Law for Palestine and the Palestinian General Delegation to Canada, in collaboration with esteemed members of the Canadian Parliament.

Palestinian Christians -
The Forcible Displacement and Dispossession Continues

The Nakba, or catastrophe, which culminated in the forcible displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians, between 1947-1949 continues today.
Read more...

Conversation with Church Leaders about Role of Canadian Churches

New Developments in Israel-Palestine and the Role of the Churches (ustpaul.ca)

What is the role of Canadian churches in advocacy regarding Palestine?

Join denominational church leaders for a conversation about how churches in Canada are involved in advocating for and with partners in Palestine, and what next steps may be needed in a context of new developments in a deteriorating situation.

Palestine
Easter Alert

This year’s Easter Alert invites us to take time each day to reflect on the suffering, the hope and the anticipation of our Palestinian sisters and brothers as they continue to experience a brutal occupation that is considered by human rights organizations and others as apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

Our readings will explore the means through which the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime has created the coercive environment that forces Palestinians to leave their homes and communities. We will use as our resource, portions of a document that is being jointly prepared by Kairos Palestine and Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (www.badil.org), to be released through a global webinar in May 2023.

The catastrophe for Palestinians and Palestinian Christians did not end with the Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948. The Nakba is ongoing and continues today. Seventy-five years after the beginning of Israel’s Zionist settler colonial project, it is becoming even further entrenched through a matrix of laws and policies that facilitate the colonization of Palestine and amount to forcible transfer of Palestinians in direct contravention of international law.

We ask you to read this Alert, reflect on it and share it with your congregations, regions, conferences, presbyteries, and dioceses across your country as a way to educate your community about the suffering of your Palestinian family living under Israeli occupation.

Read more...

Holy Land Service - Trinity-St-Paul's UC
January 29, 2023
You are invited to view the recording of the service on YouTube [Peace in the Holy Land Service - January 29, 2023 - YouTube].

Jonathan Kuttab, the guest speaker for the service, presented a message of challenge to the church on its Jewish state designation, resistance to affirming apartheid designation and lack of BDS support.

This message from a Christian Palestinian is well worth hearing.

His article/blog on Optimism versus Hope on the FOSNA website is recommended.
Optimism Versus Hope — Friends of Sabeel North America (fosna.org)

Webinar -
Palestine: Art as Resistance
Three Wednesday webinars on "Palestine: Art as Resistance", Nov.9, 16 and 23 at 10 am. Sponsored by the Shining Waters Palestine Network.

A Sermon by Rabbi Alissa Wise
Rabbi Alissa Wise offers a reflection on the "responsibility to hear from those directly affected by occupation and oppression how we might support their struggle for dignity, self-determination and equality."

Videos from the 2022 Gathering
The complete set of videos from the 2022 Gathering are now available on the Gathering website.

105 Organizations Submit on WSP’s Illegal Settlement Enterprise to UN Database, Calling New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Investigate.
UNJPPI has endorsed this call.

Actions Taken by USA Churches in 2022
USA churches have been/are voting to recognize that the Israeli government has established a system of apartheid and to join the international movement of boycott/divest/sanction to support a just peace.

A dossier on Israeli Apartheid:
A Pressing Call to Churches Around the World
Members of Kairos Palestine and Global Kairos for Justice, have created a theological study for Christians and other civil society organizations who want to learn more about the crime of apartheid and why Palestinians and a growing number of churches and human rights organizations are using the word to describe Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

CBC Podcast: Israeli court decision could pave way for Palestinian evictions in West Bank | CBC News

Listen to Nothing is Foreign (hyperurl.co)

Download PDF/read

UCC writes letter to Canadian MPs

Re: forced expulsions of Palestinian villagers from Masafer Yatta

Palestinian American journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh.

UCC writes a letter to Minister Joly
urging Canada to call for an independent investigation into the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Read more...

Saying Goodbye to Shireen Abu Akleh

A video dedicated to Shireen.

2022 UNJPPI Gathering
With hope that the pandemic will subside by the beginning of May, UNJPPI is planning to gather in London on May 5-8.

Go to https://unjppi.ca/ to learn more about how you can join us.

Amnesty International:
Israel's apartheid against Palestinians
Amnesty International is calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the crime of apartheid in its current investigation in the OPT and calls on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators of apartheid crimes to justice.

For more information and links, go here.

Public Actions - November 2021
The last weekend of November marked the International Day in Solidarity with The Palestinian People and the start of advent. Through Canada, Stand up For Palestinian Children’s Rights, several events were organized across the country and engaged hundreds of people on justice for Palestinian children. We apologize if we missed some actions in this summary.

Kairos Palestine Christmas Alert 2021
This year the Christmas Alert includes Human Stories from Palestinians in all areas of Palestine; West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the 1948 occupied Palestinian cities and the Diaspora. Each story gives a glimpse on Palestinians' life inside and outside Palestine and highlights the unity in struggle, resistance and hope among Palestinians.
Christmas Alert 2021 - English

NEW RESOURCE! Worship Service
for Justice in Palestine

It is a privilege to share with you links to a worship resource for Palestine, developed by Ineke Medcalf and Rev. Jeanette Liberty-Duns, working with partners in Palestine, and with Rev. Lilian Patey, Rev. Keith Simmonds and other committed justice-seekers here on Turtle Island.

On Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/563780316

The Nakba

In late November 1947, the United Nations voted to partition historic Palestine, creating one state for Zionist Jewish settlers and another for the Palestinian Arabs, the indigenous people of the region. Not long afterwards, the Zionists began a military campaign aimed at dispossessing as many Palestinians as possible and seizing their homes, businesses, possessions and land. The ethnic cleansing intensified after May 15, 1948, when the colonial British Mandate in Palestine ended and the Zionists proclaimed the birth of the State of Israel. By the time hostilities ended, Israel had depopulated more than 500 Palestinian villages and communities and forcibly displaced over 800,000 Palestinians.

Palestinians around the world refer to this period of ethnic cleansing as Al Nakba or “The Catastrophe” and commemorate it annually on May 15. However, Al Nakba is ongoing. For the past seventy-five years, Israel has continued to seize Palestinian land, dispossess Palestinians, and deny them fundamental human rights.

In this special issue of Network News, we reflect on the effect that seventy-five years of genocide has had on a land and a people. We also amplify the resilience and resistance of Palestinians in Palestine and the diaspora and highlight resources that can help educate and move us to action.

Above summary of the Nakba extracted, with thanks, from the UNJPPI May Newsletter.

Video: The Nakba, 75 Years On
with Rashid Khalididd

ACTION:

Send Balata FC’s letter to the PUMA CEOClick here to sign and send a letter to the new Puma CEO to call for international pressure on PUMA until it ends its complicity in Israeli apartheid.

KP Christmas Alert 2022
In this Christmas Alert, we encourage you to join us in this difficult work of humility, faith and solidarity. As we celebrate God’s incarnation in the child born here in Bethlehem, join us in the holy work of seeing the “human being” in yourself and
in the enemy, and calling the “other”
through creative resistance to see his or her own humanity, the humanity of the Palestinian, and the image of God in every human being.

Urgent Action

Easter Statement by Orthodox Patriarchate on Restrictions by Israeli Police
"The orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has decided, by the power of the Lord, that it will not compromise its right to provide spiritual services in all churches and squares...

"The police must stop imposing restrictions and violence that, unfortunately, have become part of our sacred ceremonies."

Sign the Petition from Sabeel

Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and Apartheid in the Holy Land
A background paper on Palestine and Israel worth reading for the history and context related to the current issues. By a member of UNJPPI.

APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA!
APARTHEID ISRAEL!

In a new book, “Apartheid South Africa! Apartheid Israel!” Brian J. Brown, a South African Methodist minister, calls on Christian churches, not just to recognize that Israel is an apartheid state, but to declare that total opposition to that apartheid is mandatory for any person or church that claims to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Brown’s lifelong war against apartheid has been driven by the conviction that it is utterly incompatible with any Christian theology faithful to the social teachings of Jesus Christ.
Read more...

Report on Repression of
Human Rights Defenders

Al Haq and several organizations submitted a joint report on the Repression of Human Rights Defenders in Israel and Palestine.

Read about the report here.

Just Peace Task Group Report to GC44
This report will on the agenda of the GC44.
Go to this page for the full report and the UNJPPI response.

A Cry for Hope:
A decisive Call for Action

Global Coalition of Christians
Issues Call for Palestinian Justice

A large list of church leaders
and justice advocates
signed on to the call
Read more...

Bethlehem, Palestine, July 1, 2020— Kairos Palestine and Global Kairos for Justice, a broad network of allies including Palestinian Christians and international friends of Kairos Palestine, issue Cry for Hope, an urgent call to end the oppression of the Palestinian people.

Rifat Kassis, General Coordinator of Kairos Palestine, explains, “The Body of Christ can no longer stand by as world leaders and the international community trample on the rights of Palestinians to dignity, justice and self-determination under international law. The integrity of the Christian faith itself is at stake.”

An Open Letter to U.S. Christians
from a Palestinian Pastor

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College, and the director of the Christ at the Checkpoint conferences. His latest book is The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope.

A Life Exposed
21-03-19
Report of a joint project launched by Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), and Breaking the Silence in 2018 presents the practice of raiding Palestinian homes in the West Bank

Read more

Letters to Minister Joly
re Designation of 6 Human Rights Defenders
Read more...

Israel Terrorist Designation of Six Palestinian Human Rights Organizations
UNJPPI wrote a letter to Minister Joly expressing concerns about the designation of 6 Palestinian human rights organizations as terrorrists.
Read.

Calendar of Events

Donate

Archived news posts