On Saturday 10 September, Sabeel’s Director Omar Haramy led a workshop about the role of Christian young people in the Middle East. A group of 20 young people living in Palestinian villages inside Israel participated in the workshop. The group discussed the recent publication, ‘We Choose Abundant Life’. Co-written by the Palestinian Reverend Mitri Raheb and other theologians from different church traditions and countries in the Middle East, it speaks about the role that the church can play in the region today.

The workshop was the second one organized for young people in Palestine. This workshop was the first held for Palestinian Christian youth living inside Israel. The young people spoke about how they would like the church to support them and the larger Palestinian community.

On Friday 9 September, Sabeel and the Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) organized an online session. They spoke to a group of participants from the U.S. about Sabeel’s grassroots work in the community. Many of the participants were aware of Sabeel’s international advocacy but did not know about its work on the ground developing grassroots theology and community initiatives.

On Friday 9 September, Sabeel and the Jusoor initiative, a coalition of Christians, Muslims, and Samaritans, met in Nablus to respond to continued attacks on Jacob’s Well. Jacob’s Well is the site of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The meeting took place after repeated violence that has left the community of Nablus afraid. The community trusts law and order, and they are demanding that the Palestinian Authority play a bigger role in protecting them.

On Thursday 25 August, Sabeel met with religious leaders and the community in Nablus.  Father Archimandrite Eustinus from the Jacob’s Well Church in Nablus has been attacked multiple times in the past few years by Palestinian outlaws. He has also received many death threats, and the attacks do not seem to be connected. The Palestinian Authority has been incompetent in dealing with these attacks and holding the perpetrators accountable. This has created a sense of outlawness and impunity in Palestine, especially in Nablus. 

For many years, Israeli settler groups have been attempting to take over the well, because they claim that it is holy to Jewish people. These attacks are not new. In 1979, Saint Philoumenos was killed at the Church when an Israeli threw a hand grenade inside.

More recently, Dr. Nasser Al-Din Al-Shaer, the former Education Minister of the Palestinian National Authority who was serving as a member of Hamas was attacked by outlaws in Nablus in July 2022, shot 20 times, and seriously injured by the attack. Dr. Al-Shaer also served as Deputy Prime Minister in the previous cabinet.

On Tuesday and Wednesday August 23 and 24, Sabeel participated in a workshop at the Wujoud Museum and Cultural Center in the Old City of Jerusalem. Wujoud means ‘presence’ in Arabic. Wujoud is a museum and center for the Palestinian Christian community. It tries to highlight the people and communities in the city, not only the holy sites and museums. Many people who visit Jerusalem see the Old City as a museum and not as a home to many people and communities. Wujoud has not been operational during the pandemic, but it plans to become more active again.

In August, and for two weeks,  Sabeel participated in an online summer school about peacebuilding and human rights protection organized by the United Evangelical Mission. The goal of the summer school was to increase understanding about mediation as a tool for conflict resolution in churches and religious communities in the context of shrinking spaces for civil society and churches. The summer school was attended by churches and communities around the world.

The UEM in its present form emerged from the work of the Rhenish Mission, the Bethel Mission and the Zaire Mission. Our 39 members today are Protestant churches in Africa, Asia and Germany and the von Bodelschwingh Foundations Bethel, which have been working together on an equal footing since 1996.

On Wednesday 17 August, the Sabeel health insurance committee met with the Al Mashriq insurance company. They discussed the recent evaluation conducted about the project and ways to further their cooperation.

On Monday 15 August, a pro-Palestine group of active members of the United Church of Christ met to discuss the recent UCC General Synod meeting. The 34th General Synod meeting was just concluded in June. During the annual meeting, important resolutions about Palestine were going to be passed but they have been postponed. The group met to look at lessons learned and brainstorm ways to move forward.

On Thursday 4 August, Sabeel hosted a group of 40 internationals who came as part of a wedding party of Daniel and Elizabeth Banoura and Shannon Jehn. Celebrating the wedding of a Palestinian and an American, the group visited Sabeel to learn about the history of and current situation in Palestine/Israel. After touring the Old City of Jerusalem, they spent two hours at the Sabeel office. This is the first time we have ever hosted a wedding party interested in learning about Palestine/Israel – and we welcome more visits like this!

On Thursday 4 August, Elise Aghazarian of Sabeel participated in a symposium about reconciliation and peace education in higher education institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Elise spoke about the Armenian presence and heritage in the Arab world. The symposium was organized by AARMENA, the Academic Alliance for Reconciliation, Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding for the Higher Education Institutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Elise works at Radboud University in the Netherlands in the area of comparative religious studies.

AARMENA is an alliance of universities and other higher educational institutions, scholars, and academics doing joint research and developing teaching programs and curriculums in Reconciliation Peacebuilding Studies in the MENA region.