The Methodist Church in Ireland supports the call from the Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) for all violence to be brought to an immediate and complete end and for a comprehensive ceasefire to be reached. In addition, we call on the state of Israel to allow the long line of trucks waiting to bring humanitarian assistance into Gaza immediate access to cross into Gaza at Rafah.

We also call on the Hamas leadership to release the remaining Israeli hostages and, in return, for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners being held indefinitely without charge in administrative detention together with a number of long serving Palestinian prisoners of over 20 years. All these sequential actions will enable the international community to address the structural causes of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in a peacebuilding conference.

We pray for the sustainable life of all our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land of whatever faith. We have seen on our television screens the awful suffering of Palestinians from the violence between warring parties and the Israeli families who have experienced trauma from the atrocities of the 7th October attacks. We pray that they might be brought comfort and healing. At the same time, we also want to remember all those who have suffered from the conflict over the past seventy years and the ongoing injustices of decades of occupation. We call on our leaders, the United Nations and international leaders to create the political conditions for a historic settlement of this enduring conflict.

This is a joint statement from the Council on Social Responsibility of the Methodist Church in Ireland and the President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Rev David Turtle.