The Stones Cry Out Delegation
From the Ground in Palestine to the US Government and Churches
February 27-March 4, 2024
Part 1 of 3 (Overview)
“Nothing has changed, and everything has changed.” These are the words of Sam Bahour, Palestinian- American businessman and activist who spoke to our delegation. Nothing has changed because the deadly oppression of the Palestinian people has been ongoing for 76 years. Everything has changed since October 7, the day Hamas fighters pierced the walls of the concentration camp called Gaza. As followers of Jesus, we embrace non-violence and so grieve for all who have died, includingthe victims of the Hamas attack. Nevertheless, as our Palestinian friends reminded us, the violence did not begin on October 7; it must be understood in the broader context of at least 17 years of Israel’s inhuman strangulation of Gaza by land, air, and sea, 76 years of a continuing Nakba (since 1948), and over a century since the rise of Zionism.
In the past 150 days, Gaza has become a killing field. Israel’s response against the Palestinian people is disproportionate by orders of magnitude. The atrocities perpetrated by the IDF on Gaza by land, sea, and air are broadcast before our eyes, on our phones, in real time. We watch in horror. Entire families die in their beds under Israel’s bombs. Apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, churches and mosques, markets are leveled. Relief and food convoys are denied entry at the Egypt border.
Mass starvation is rampant. On February 29, Gazans in the north rushed to grab bags of flour from rare relief. Israeli soldiers responded with a massacre of starving civilians seeking food; at least 100 died.
Lethal infections and diarrhea, lack of clean water and medicines will kill thousands more in the coming weeks and months. The UN representatives on the ground, no strangers to tragedy, call this “the worst humanitarian crisis that they have ever seen.
”We conclude it is nothing less than an attempt to wipe Palestinian history, tradition, and culture from human memory, the very definition of genocide.
We are a delegation of 23 American Christians, pastors and lay people, activists all, some who have been to Palestine and Israel often, a few who have lived and worked in the region, and a few who are visiting for the first time. We have been urgently called by our Palestinian sisters and brothers to bear witness to this abomination and return to the US with their message. To put our visit into context, the “Flour Massacre,” as it is now called, was taking place in Gaza less than 50 miles from where we sat listening to Sam Bahour.
Let us be clear: it is our faith, our shared faith, our shared humanity, that compelled us to be here, in the land where our faith was born. But it is also as US citizens that we’ve come, knowing that US tax dollars, our tax dollars, are funding this crisis. Our government, the administration and Congress, bipartisan, supports these war crimes.