At this time, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 37,000 persons, including more than 15,000 children. In the occupied West Bank, more than 553 people have been killed, including over 137 children. More than 90,000 Palestinians have been injured since October 7, 2023, in Gaza and the West Bank. On that day, 1,139 Israelis were killed and a further 120 are still held hostage inside Gaza, at least 34 of whom are presumed dead. We affirm all life to be precious and created in the image of God.
We receive and affirm the call of Palestinian Christians to repent of our indifference to their suffering as well as of all theological articulations that promote or justify it.
We mourn the loss of over 80 percent of Palestinian institutions of education in Gaza and we condemn this scholasticide. We express our solidarity and support for all faculty, staff, and students who persist in teaching students in make-shift universities despite the horrific conditions in which they are forced to work.
We also raise our voices to offer our support, encouragement, and prayer for student and faculty protestors in Canada and throughout the world who are taking direct action through encampments, protests, and other forms of non-violent resistance to this war and Western complicity within it. We condemn any infringement upon their safety, their detainments, arrests, and other forms of reprisals that they may face. We commit ourselves to the principles of academic freedom without censure and we condemn any prohibitions to free and reasoned speech upon our campuses.
We join our voices to call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire to put an end to violence in Gaza and throughout Palestine. We call for a return of all hostages on both sides. We call for the cessation of investments in arms in universities which profit from this war. We call upon the universities to desist from using violence against their students. In all these ways, we resist and stand with those who are seeking justice and an end to all violence.
- Passed by the Canadian Theological Society at the Annual General Meeting on June 18, 2024 in Montreal.
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