Minute for Mission: Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day

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The Palestinian village of Lifta, on the western outskirts of Jerusalem (Photo by Douglas Dicks)

The Nakba — catastrophe — commemorated on May 15, is not only a past event but an ongoing reality shaping our faith and identity. It is a wound carried across generations, marked by loss, displacement and steadfastness. In this story, we both encounter God and struggle to find God — present in suffering, yet at times painfully hidden.

Remembering is not easy. It is not always safe to speak, to name what has happened and what continues to unfold. We have written so much, told our stories again and again, raised our voices — yet the kind of change that touches daily life often feels distant. Still, on May 15, we are reminded of the danger of silence. We fear forgetting, and we fear what happens if the voices of Palestinians made refugees are no longer heard. We also fear truly listening — to the cries from demolished homes, refugee camps, tents in Gaza, villages in the West Bank facing settler violence and the darkness of military prisons — because listening demands something from us.

We live between a past Nakba and an ongoing one, between the voices of older generations and the urgency of the present. Ours is not a single story, but a chorus that refuses to disappear.

As the war on Gaza deepens our wounds, it feels like another chapter is being written before our eyes. We move from one trauma to another, like moving from one cave to the next — searching for shelter and breath. Yet even there, we keep writing. On the walls, we leave our grief, memory and stubborn hope. We plan, endure, resist. We gather what remains and sing, even as the danger outside does not pass.

Faith, then, becomes both lament and defiance — crying out in pain, yet refusing despair. Even when the road is unclear, we keep praying, trusting that God is with us, and holding to the belief that justice is the only path to a real and lasting peace.

Friday, May 15, marks the 78th anniversary of al-Nakba. Arabic for “the catastrophe,” it refers to the fact that over 750,000 Indigenous Palestinians were violently driven from their homes and over 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed to make way for the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel. The reality of the Nakba, however, is that it never ended. 

Currently, the Palestinian people have never found themselves or their survival more at risk, as an accelerated and increasingly brutal process of apartheid, dispossession, and genocide threatens the erasure of Palestinian society, culture, and history. Meanwhile, all of this is being underwritten by illegitimate theologies and belief systems which serve to provide ideological cover for extreme violence and Palestinian displacement. 

As such, Nakba Day is about centering and amplifying the Palestinian experience, shining a light upon and refusing to allow the world to forget, silence, or ignore the truth of the Palestinian experience. So, as our colleagues, friends, and family in Palestine resiliently stand against expulsion, persecution, and erasure, your advocacy within your community and among your networks is essential to the pursuit of a just peace and the preservation of an Indigenous Palestinian presence in the Holy Land. NAKBA DAY 78: A SOLIDARITY TOOLKIT

Omar Haramy of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff:

Helen Heinzen, Mission Specialist, Stewardship and Funds Development, Administrative Services Group
Lorraine Henry, Director, Advocacy, Plan Operations, The Board of Pensions     

Let us pray:

Our Father, stir the conscience of the nations and awaken people of conscience. Let law be upheld and justice be done. Break the silence of the world’s majority and of those who delay what is right. Give us courage — bring to light and hold accountable all who obstruct justice. Strengthen us to rise, to walk, to return — not with the violence that forced us out but with solidarity, community and nonviolence. Walk with us until our exile ends in home.

Minute for Mission: Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day

This April 3, 2025, letter from Abuna Elias Chacour, Greek Catholic Archbishop of Galilee, was written to Douglas Dicks, Global Ecumenical Liaison, Interim Unified Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Ecumenical Associate — St. Andrew's Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem.

Dear Douglas Dicks,

Ruins of the Palestinian village/remains of Biram. Father Chacour’s village
in the Galilee (provided)

I thank you for your visit with the other brothers and sisters that reminded me that what unites us is much more important than what separates us.

I always appreciated the position that the Presbyterian church expressed in their yearbook about the “Nakba.” Not many churches have the courage to say the truth concerning the Palestinian plight; for that we are very grateful.

For the coming 2026, may the Presbyterian church have the courage to relate what happened as a continued policy of exterminating the Palestinian people. What happens in Gaza and in the West Bank are continued atrocities, a mass murder aiming to destroy the Palestinian dream to come back home, and they would say very clearly coming back home does not mean in practice an end of Israel. What was done in 1948 was the dismantling of a nation of people who lived peacefully in their country, in their homes and on their land.

The “Nakba” was an illustration of might is right, but with that a nightmare started for the Israeli citizens; they did and are doing their utmost to destroy what remains of Palestine, to destroy in mass murder operation. Children and women besides men are hoping they would uproot the reasons of the nightmare, but the Palestinians are alive; they remember their home and villages. Not only my village, but many others showed welcome to the arrival of Jewish soldiers. They thought it would be possible to live together and to share the land that God has promised to the Palestinians, as well as to the Jews. Yes, this is what I affirm: The land of Palestine does not belong to the Jews; neither to the Palestinians; but both are sojourners on the land.

That is why the right attitude would be for both nations to say that we belong to the land. We are entrusted to live on that land; if not together, at least as neighbors. All other explanations, Zionist political explanation or Christian evangelical attitude pushed to their ultimate can become an offense to God, as well to his children, the Jews and the Palestinians.

I think the Presbyterian church adopted the behavior of prophet Alajah, who did not fear King Ahab. He blamed him for killing Nabout, the Palestinian. We do not want the curse of prophet Alajah to fall on the Jewish people; we want them to live and to tolerate the ongoing attempt to ignore the other side, who also belong to the land, but who continue suffering and persecution with deprivation of their rights to live and to survive on the same land called Palestine.

I pray to God to look upon these two nations and give them the courage of recognizing that the other nation has also right to belong and to live in Palestine. May God extend his arm and stop the unhuman atrocities in Gaza that are committed in the name of God who does not kill.

Yours Sincerely,

Abuna Elias Chacour

Greek Catholic Archbishop em. of Galilee

Let us join in prayer for:

• Jessica Maudlin, Mission Associate II, Sustainable Living & Earth Care Concerns, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Interim Unified Agency
• David Maxwell, VP/Geneva Press & Church Relations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation 

Let us pray:

God of the repressed and the refugee, we ask your abundant mercy on those who have lost the security of hearth and home. Make us ever mindful of those who live with the fear of uprootedness. Be with those who suffer from being downtrodden by others. Grant them the security of the knowledge that you will never leave us nor forsake us, even when the world does. We ask your forgiveness to those who know not what they do. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

Minute for Mission: Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day

May 15, 2022

Dr. Bernard Sabella (provided)

Like thousands of other Palestinians, my parents experienced dispossession and became refugees because of the Nakba (disaster) that befell the Palestinian people and society on May 15, 1948. Becoming refugees and seeing the disintegration of all that you used to love is a very difficult transition. Spiritual guidance and comfort are a resource that I witnessed both my father and mother use to recoup and go on. But it was not an easy process. I often accompanied my father to the nearby Holy Sepulchre where the saga of Crucifixion and Resurrection happened. Our home of refugee was just minutes away from the church and it became essential for my parents to reinvigorate themselves by visiting the church frequently to recover from the trauma of dispossession and refuge. The model that my parents offered was one of faith, despite all odds.

Palestine and the Palestinian people have been on the trek of transition since the Nakba day in 1948. The experiences of the first generation of refugees from the 1948 Arab Israeli war, which saw the disintegration of Palestinian society and the ingathering of the Jews in the nascent State of Israel, pointed to two opposed processes. On the one hand, there was rebirth, and on the other, there was death and disintegration. The essential question remains can these two conflicting processes be reconciled? Healing remains needed to reconcile to trauma and dispossession experienced by Palestinians. It is needed also as a means of acknowledging the narrative and pain of the other by the Israelis. Healing is a mutual undertaking and religion can have an instrumental role in the process. The model of my parents, and I am sure that of countless others, who reverted to their belief and faith to overcome remains to be explored by more Palestinians and Israelis.

Disasters, Nakbas, are part of our collective experience and recollection. Now that our world experiences conflict in Europe, the Old Continent, in countries of the Middle East Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Occupied Territory as well as in Yemen and Libya among others. With climate change and the millions affected in Africa and all over, we all need to learn from the lesson of Resurrection and to rise together to face the challenges of a world in crisis.

For us, in Occupied Palestine and in Israel, we have a particular challenge: how to make of Nakba day a day for coming together; acknowledging each other and overcoming decades of conflict and communal confrontation. We need each other, as our populations increase and as our land, the Holy Land, remains limited in its resources. Nakba day is not simply a day for recollection, but it is also a day that calls for recouping and for exploring ways towards a future of healing where occupation is no longer and where reconciliation becomes in order.

Dr. Bernard Sabella, Director of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches, retired associate professor of Sociology at Bethlehem University, living in Jerusalem with his wife, Mary

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Corey Schlosser-Hall, Deputy Executive Director of Visioning, Rebuilding and Innovation, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Jeanie Schmuckie, Legal Assistant, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

As in the promise of Revelation 21:2–4 that the old order of things will pass and so in Palestine and Israel: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”