Send messages of solidarity to our partners in Palestine in the crossfire of the US-Israel war against Iran 

“We are in more dire need of prayers and solidarity than ever before.” 

Zoughbi Zoughbi, director of Wi’am: Palestinian Conflict Transformation Centre, our partner in the West Bank, ended our online meeting with these words. I have rarely heard him speak with such heaviness and despair.  

Too often, we look to partners to carry the burden of hope for all of us. We look to their resistance, their steadfastness and their work for justice as proof that another world is possible. And again and again, they have shown us that it is. 

Now, it is our turn. 

In these days leading up to Easter, we invite you to respond to this call for prayers and solidarity for Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians – all those whose lives and hopes shattered by the US–Israel war on Iran.   

Visit this online form (available below) to send us your personal message of solidarity and support, or a prayer, by March 30. I will compile the messages and ensure they are shared with partners before Easter. 

While Zoughbi and I met, missiles were fired overhead. At least 15 rockets were intercepted during our conversation as we discussed work supporting women to build equitable, just and sustainable peace. The contrast was chilling. Yet he reminded us that even these conversations, planning, reporting, continuing are acts of commitment to a different future – a better tomorrow and a better world. 

Wi’am’s office backs onto the partition wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. They are living and working in the crossfire of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. A situation already marked by devastating violence has become even more dangerous. Displacement, dispossession and lethal settler and Israeli military violence against Palestinians have escalated. Unemployment, economic hardship and food insecurity, already at crisis levels, continue to deepen. 

Yet Palestinian voices are being pushed further to the margins. Their calls for solidarity are drowned out by war even as conditions on the ground worsen. 

Here in Canada, much of the conversation turns inward, focusing on the domestic impact of war through the price of gas and food. 

At KAIROS, we will continue to act. We call for respect for international law, an end to genocide and occupation, a comprehensive arms embargo against Israel and sanctions against Israel for illegal settlement expansion. 

And we call for messages of solidarity and prayers for our partners. 

By Rachel Warden, Partnerships Manager 

“Hope, again, is not naive optimism or despairing pessimism: it is an active, nonviolent and shared struggle for justice and peace. Hope is fueled by a spirituality of love, sense of costly discipleship and persevering justice. Hope is bolstered by relationships, consequential friendships in communities of resistance and compassion.”

– Zoughbi Zoughbi in December 2024.