A top Christian monthly magazine has published an interview with Khalid Mish'al, widely regarded as the most senior figure in Hamas, the Islamist resistance group elected in Palestine and described as 'terrorists' by the USA.

As the State of Israel marked the 60th anniversary of its founding, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) made an unequivocal statement against anti-Semitism but also urged full recognition of the rights of the Palestinians.

As Israel marks its 60th anniversary this May, for Israelis and Palestinians the conflict and the suffering continues, says Ben White. He believes that this landmark is an important opportunity for Christian leaders around the world to add their voices to a special call for a justice-based peace.

The Methodist Church in Britain has said that on the fifth anniversary of the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq, governments must learn that a military response that seeks to exert control can easily bring further chaos.

Supporters of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and On Earth Peace, an agency of the US Church of the Brethren, have visited the West Bank and Israel to explore civil society responses to conflict, security and community.

When is a terrorist a terrorist, and how is the violence of occupier and occupied to be understood and responded to by those committed to nonviolence? Dianne Roe asks the questions from an assignment in Palestine with CPT.

UK-based international development agency Christian Aid has welcomed US President George Bush’s statement on the Middle East calling for ‘an end to the occupation that began in 1967’, referring to Israel and Palestinian lands.

The Israeli army has launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing at least nine people in a series of military air strikes and shelling attacks. It has been accused of breaking the spirit of the Annapolis peace agreement.

A Baghdad-based British Anglican priest has told a US news network that Christians are considerably worse off now than they were during the regime of the late Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former dictator, whose deposition he welcomed.