The WCC said in a statement earlier in the week that encouraging “new voices are advocating steps towards peace that churches have been promoting for years".
Believing that the 60-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict is on the verge of seeing a new light, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "There is really no situation that is intractable – none.”
The Nobel peace laureate compared the Palestine Israel conflict to the seemingly deadlocked situation in South Africa before the downfall of apartheid.
“Each [situation] is capable of being resolved, even this one that seemed so utterly intractable," he added.
This year, the time of holding the peace week came at an even more meaningful time, coinciding with US President Barack Obama’s visit to the Middle East.
Mr Obama advocated a "just peace" and two-state solution to the Middle East conflict in an address in Cairo last week to Muslims.
"It's time for people who have been refugees for 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home," the churches' action week message said. For 60 years "the Palestinian people, Christian and Muslim … have endured the pain of dislocation", he said.
Mr Obama added: "All of us have a responsibility to work for the day … when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims."
The leader of over a billion Catholic faithful, Pope Benedict XVI said in his recent trip to Israel, "I come, like so many others before me, to pray at the holy places, to pray especially for peace - peace in the Holy Land and peace throughout the world."
The peace week carried the message, "It's time for Israelis and Palestinians to share a just peace.”
To begin the week in Bethlehem, local participants projected prayers for peace onto the separation wall at night. Later in the week, prayers were read out loud at checkpoints, in schools and in refugee camps.
Meanwhile, in at least seven of the participating countries, church delegations met government officials to urge concrete steps toward peace now.
