From 18 - 20 June in Amman, Jordan, more than 130 representatives from churches and Christian organizations attended a conference entitled “Churches together for peace and justice the Middle East” organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC). The WCC unites more than 340 churches in over a hundred countries and territories, representing about 550 million Christians. “Churches have woken up to the issues in the Middle East like never been before. Another time we woke up is when we fought apartheid in Africa; this is another apartheid,” WCC general secretary Reverend Dr. Sam Kobia told The Jordan Times after the conference. Read more about World Council of Churches intensifies efforts to end occupation 

At least 20 houses in two Bedouin-Arab villages were destroyed on 25 June by Israeli security forces, leaving over 150 people homeless. Some 1,500 police and special forces converged on the two small villages, which together have a population of about 1,000 people from the al-Qi’an family, and conducted the demolitions. “The children went to school and the men to work. Only the women stayed home,” said Azam al-Qi’an, aged 16, whose home was destroyed. Read more about Dozens made homeless as police demolish Bedouin houses 

“You see, both Ahmad and I are staying in the same room at this hospital, where we are being treated for wounds we have sustained during infighting. I am a Hamas supporter, while he is with Fatah,” said Ibrahim, who was shot with several bullets in his body. Ahmad, the Fatah supporter and preventive security personnel of the al-Tuffah neighborhood in central Gaza City, said it all with his sad eyes. “What fault has my son committed to be in such a situation? May God take revenge on those who have beaten him,” said a bearded man, Ahmad’s father. EI contributor Rami Almeghari reports from Cairo. Read more about Foes in Gaza, roommates in Cairo hospital 

JERUSALEM, 21 June 2007 (IRIN) - The Gaza Strip will face a general food shortage within two-four weeks if the main commercial Karni Crossing is not reopened, the UN has warned. “For a crisis to be avoided, commercial and humanitarian food stocks must be replenished regularly and reliably,” a report on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on 20 June said. Aid workers say most food supplies in Gaza arrive through Karni Crossing. Read more about UN warns of food shortages unless key crossing point reopened 

Standing at the entrance to Nahr al-Bared Camp a week ago in the still, oppressive heat waiting with Fatme for her sister and her nieces to be evacuated, we watched as two large army trucks emerged from the camp. Though the backs of the trucks were covered with tarpaulin and soldiers forbade the assembled journalists from filming, as the trucks roared by we could see that each contained about thirty men and boys, handcuffed, some blindfolded, most with their heads bent down towards their laps. Caoimhe Butterly describes the experiences of Nahr al-Bared refugees who have been arrested, beaten and humiliated by Lebanese forces. Read more about "They see us all as criminals" 

JERUSALEM, 20 June 2007 (IRIN) - Some 4.4 million Palestinians remain refugees nearly 60 years after the start of the 1948 war. As the world marks World Refugee Day on 20 June, about one third of these refugees still live inside camps, while an even larger proportion continue to receive aid and relief services, primarily from UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Observers say the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has worsened over the past year due to the violence, intense infighting in the Gaza Strip and the international economic boycott on the Palestinian Authority. Read more about Plight of Palestinian refugees worsening in most parts of Middle East 

Four years after the emergence of the first signs of a serious insurgency in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush finds himself beset with major crises stretching from Palestine to Pakistan.With U.S.-backed Fatah forces routed by Hamas in Gaza this week, Bush’s five-year-old vision of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict now looks more remote than ever, while a new Pentagon report in Iraq suggests that his four-month-old “surge” strategy is failing in its primary objective of reducing the violence there. Read more about Bush Faces Crises from Palestine to Pakistan 

In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed white American clergymen who were opposed to his civil resistance campaign that fought against racist, segregationist policies and practices in the US. Writing from his jail cell he responded particularly to people who would have preferred that African Americans be patient and wait for those rights to come to them rather than to resist: “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” Dr. Marcy Newman reflects upon the relevance of King’s words to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Read more about Letter from a Palestinian Camp