Palestinians are commemorating the Nakba this week. May 15th reminds them of the catastrophe which began seventy-five years ago, in 1948 when five hundred and thirty Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed and over seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians were expelled from their homes and villages or fled for their lives. A whole generation of Palestinians have now been constrained to live out their lives as refugees.
- God of love and justice, as we commemorate the Palestinian Nakba (May 15th) this week, our hearts break with the grief of 75 years of different forms of injustice and suffering in Palestine. Though our hearts break, we remain steadfast. Keep our courage and resilience strong and renew within the Palestinian people the will and the hope for strategic peaceful resistance to on-going abuses. Lord, we cry out that the continuing Nakba of Palestinian dispossession and suffering must end! We pray for all Palestinians at home and abroad, especially refugees driven from their homes in 1948, they still long to return to their rightful homes. How long, O Lord, will this continue?
Lord, in your mercy…hear our prayer.