The escalation of conflict across the Middle East has left millions of people in a state of fear and uncertainty. From the severe hunger crisis in Gaza to the mass displacement of people in Lebanon, the humanitarian need is staggering.
As a global church family, we are called to stand in solidarity with people who are suffering. Please join us in lifting up communities across the Middle East in prayer, bringing their urgent needs before God.
What to pray for
Pray for a just and lasting peace
- An end to violence: Pray for an immediate end to the airstrikes and attacks across the region. Ask God to silence weapons and protect all civilians caught in the crossfire of this expanding conflict.
- Wisdom for leaders: Pray for world leaders and people with influence. Ask for God to grant them the wisdom and courage to seek de-escalation, and for their hearts to be moved toward justice and mercy over military action.
- Restoration for communities: Pray for a lasting vision of peace. Ask that God would begin the work of restoring fractured communities, replacing fear and uncertainty with a just peace for all people.
Pray for protection
- Protection of civilians: Pray for people in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and across the Middle East. Ask God to protect people made most vulnerable by conflict, especially children, older people, and people with disabilities who cannot easily reach safety.
- Safety for the displaced: Lift up the millions of people forced from their homes with nothing. Pray for their protection from harm as they navigate the uncertainty of shelters, unfamiliar surroundings and harsh weather.
- Safe delivery of aid: Pray for the safe passage of aid. Ask that borders would remain open and secure so that life-saving food, water, medicine and other essentials can reach those in the most cut-off and dangerous areas.
Pray for strength
- Church leaders: Pray for pastors and church leaders across the Middle East. Ask for a blessing of strength and tenacity as they offer spiritual and practical support to their communities, while also dealing with their own fear and loss.
- Partners and staff: Pray for Tearfund’s local partners, Anera, Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, MERATH, Middle East Council of Churches and International Health Partners, as well as Tearfund staff in the region. Ask for God to sustain and protect them as they move through high-risk environments to deliver aid and respond to those in the greatest need.
- Resilience of communities: Pray for local churches and communities across the region that are sharing their limited resources with the displaced. Ask God to provide for them and to foster a spirit of unity and kindness amidst the strain.
Pray for hope
- Sustaining the weary: Pray for those in Gaza and Lebanon who have been displaced multiple times. Ask God to save them from despair and to remind them that they are not forgotten by the world or by him.
- A future beyond conflict: Pray that the stress and trauma of the current news and violence would not extinguish the hope for a peaceful future. Pray that families will one day be able to return to their homes in safety.
- Light in the darkness: Pray for the church to continue as a beacon of hope in the Middle East. Ask that they would have the resources and the spirit to continue demonstrating Christ's love in a landscape of ruin.
Pray for healing
- Physical and emotional wounds: Pray for the thousands of people injured in recent airstrikes, those suffering from acute malnutrition, and all those living in fear. Ask for the Great Physician to bring healing to bodies and deep comfort and peace to minds scarred by trauma.
- Rehabilitation of the land: Pray for the long-term recovery of nations in the Middle East. Ask that the Lord would provide the resources and wisdom needed not just for immediate aid, but for the long-term rehabilitation and rebuilding of infrastructure and communities.
- Restoration of healthcare systems: Pray for the hospitals and medical staff in Gaza and Lebanon who are exhausted and undersupplied. Ask God to provide everything needed to treat the children in Gaza who currently require severe malnutrition treatment.
Pray with us
Lord of peace and protection,
We lift up the Middle East to you at this terrifying crossroads. Will you walk through the rubble and the fields where families seek refuge. Be their shield and their strength.
Guard young and old alike, and all people who are made vulnerable by the shadows of trauma and the stresses of war. We ask for your intervention so that food, water and shelter can be provided to people in need.
Strengthen your church in the Middle East to be a beacon of hope, and rally the church on a global scale to become agents of transformation. Use us to speak up with truth and hope for a just and lasting peace.
Grant wisdom to people in power, that they may seek the path of peace.
We believe that what seems impossible for us is never impossible in your hands. Speak your peace, which transcends all understanding, over all nations across the region.
In the name of Jesus,
Amen.
