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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Last week, during Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day of the year, Hezbollah fired another barrage of rockets into Israel from its southern Lebanon stronghold. One million Israelis rushed into bomb shelters to wait out the intermittent but heavy attacks. A day later, an Iranian drone armed with a missile crashed into the roof of an IDF dining room south of Haifa—murdering four Golani Brigade soldiers and injuring dozens more. Israel’s defensive war has resulted in yet another level of intense anguish for its beleaguered people.

Early on, Israel discovered how Hamas used UNWRA (TheUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) as a cover for terror. Now, with Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, compelling evidence is also emerging about UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), the so-called “peacekeeping” force. It seems that the Islamic Regime’s twin terror proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have repurposed the United Nations’ roles in UNRWA and UNIFIL as tools of hate against Jews and their homeland.

Because of Iran’s backing and support, Hezbollah is the most well-armed terrorist organization in the world. They use UNIFIL soldiers as well as men, women, and children as human shields in yet another violation of international law. (Consider how that practice contrasts with Israel’s policy of protecting civilians.) Right beside UNIFIL soldiers, Hezbollah built bunkers and tunnels designed solely for attacks and invasions into Israel. UNIFIL ignored these deadly projects in total violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, intended to resolve the 2006 Lebanon War by withdrawing Israeli forces and disarming armed groups—including Hezbollah.

Sound familiar?

Acclaimed author and journalist Douglas Murray, embedded in Gaza with the IDF and now in southern Lebanon, reports his eye-opening firsthand experiences: “How is it possible that the kind of heavy digging needed to create these tunnels could have happened literally right under the noses of the UN? Were they not looking? Did they even care?”

They decided not to look, Murray says, “The international peacekeeping force has been a joke for years.”

As the Israel Defense Forces have sought to destroy the Iran-financed arsenals, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has broadcast a strong message to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “The time has come to remove UNIFIL from Hezbollah’s strongholds and war zones.” Guterres’s repeated refusals have resulted in Hezbollah using UNIFIL as human shields. “Your refusal to evacuate UNIFIL soldiers,” emphasizedNetanyahu, “turns them into Hezbollah’s hostages. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers.”

Thus far, UNIFIL soldiers have been injured during the fighting. Netanyahu assures Guterres that Israel is intent on preventing harm but directly challenges the secretary–general, “Remove them [the UNIFIL soldiers] from the area. This needs to be done immediately, now.” We must understand that leaving UNIFIL in place means more injuries and deaths among these (supposed) peacekeepers and gives the biased United Nations more reasons to blame Israel.

Israel’s defensive measures are exposing the moral corruption of two misguided United Nations programs: UNWRA and UNIFIL. They have grown into diseased operations undermining Israel under the purview of the United Nations, including the UN Security Council. Ten percent of UNWRA’s staff were affiliated with Hamas, and on October 7, 2023, according to a Telegram channel, 3,000 UNRWA staff celebrated Hamas’s massacres. The Biden administration rightly canceled U.S. tax dollars funding UNRWA; the U.S. had been its biggest donor.

Most of us are familiar with Hamas and UNRWA by now. However, why is UNIFIL stationed in southern Lebanon with a contingent of 10,000 soldiers from 50 countries?

In 2006, the UN Security Council voted on Resolution 1701 to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel after the Second Lebanon War. UNIFIL was tasked with monitoring southern Lebanon, especially along the almost 70 miles of the Lebanon/Israel “border.” Called the Blue Line, it is not a border; it is only a temporary “line of withdrawal” set by the UN.

UNIFIL “peacekeepers” were intended to be temporary overseers to enforce these lofty ideas, noting that any crossing of the Blue Line violated UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Significantly, they were assigned to prevent any “sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon.” However, Hezbollah has made sure that UNIFIL completely failed. During a period of more than 20 years, Iran shipped billions of dollars’ worth of weapons into southern Lebanon by land, sea, and air.

You may wonder why Israel is now warning civilians to leave their homes in southern Lebanon. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett informs us: “Many Shiites in Lebanon have a unique revenue stream: In their home they have a special ‘Rocket Launcher Room.’ They’re paid monthly rent by Hezbollah to host this launcher and be prepared to shoot rockets at Israel communities on demand.”

Bennett goes on to express his astonishment while serving as a company commander fighting Hezbollah in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. “Who the heck turns their home into a terror base? The IDF is now systematically destroying these death machines. Any man who turns his home into a death launch pad puts his family in severe danger, and only he is responsible for the consequences. Enough is enough!”

Estimates for missiles and rockets range from 40,000-120,000. Professor Andreas Krieg at King’s College London warns that, although the IDF has destroyed many short- and mid-range missiles, “The crown jewels of its [Hezbollah’s] missile capability are not stored overground but underground.” Larger missiles with bigger warheads and longer range put Israel in greater danger, and Krieg adds that “the damage in Israel will be so considerable that there is no stepping back from the abyss anymore.”

Use his quote as a prompt for our prayers and faith, referring to Isaiah 9:7, where God assures Israel’s future no matter what is happening today: “Of the greatness of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.”

Resolution 1701 makes us wonder: is the United Nations a direct accomplice for UNRWA and UNIFIL—not simply to repeatedly verbalize accusations of Israel as the only problem in the Middle East? Moreover, are they so morally corrupt that they not only allow but support Jew hatred with rampant violence against the world’s only Jewish state?

Furthermore, how strong is the Islamic Regime’s hold on the UN? Why are Iran’s presidents—currently Masoud Pezeshkian—welcomed each year to the UN General Assembly? Why is Pezeshkian allowed to freely come and go in New York City while the Ayatollahs endanger former President Trump’s and others’ lives with illegal gangs of Iranians welcomed into our nation’s southern border? It is long past time for the United Nations to abandon its toxic bias. Might the USA invite the UN to leave our country?

Most of the United Nations is a hornet’s nest of evil that enables the Shia Islamic Regime to press on and resurrect a modern caliphate. The Ayatollah’s apocalyptic goal is to rule the world with impunity like they oppress their own population now. They will not stop until they are stopped.

Those of us who are grateful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus also owe a debt of gratitude for God’s people and His land defending themselves and all freedom-loving people.

Our CBN Israel team welcomes you to join us in prayer this week, trusting God’s intervention on behalf of His chosen people by remembering Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.”

Prayer Points:

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir summed up Israel’s determined posture that applies perfectly in the Jewish new year 5785. Her words still ring true today. “If we have to choose between being dead and pitied and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”  

I wholeheartedly agree with Golda! 

Millions of Christians embrace Israel as our spiritual homeland. We are grateful that Israel is fighting evil on the front lines of freedom—not only for their small, singular Jewish state but for all freedom-loving people.

Three days ago, on Monday October 7 at exactly 6:29 a.m. Israel time, officials lowered Israel’s beautiful royal blue and white national flags to half-mast in front of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Their flag, fashioned after a Jewish prayer shawl, is more than an emblem. This year, Jews—and Christians—have filled the Western Wall Plaza in historically extraordinary numbers, I daresay millions, since the Plaza can accommodate up to 400,000 people in a day. With countless prayers, singing Tikvah (“The Hope”), commissioning IDF soldiers, and dancing with joy, yes joy, the ancient Kotel is still standing!  

Since that moment of horrific surprise at 6:29 a.m. on October 7, 2023, every Israeli Jew—Arab Israelis, Bedouins, and Druze too—have been in deep grief. A proxy of the Islamic Regime ruthlessly carried out the worst evil since the Holocaust. Psalm 10:7 could have been describing Hamas on October 7 and is fitting for mainstream media: “His mouth is full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue.” At this writing, the war has been going on for 368 days. Join me in agreeing with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s observation on Monday’s commemoration day: “It was the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, but unlike the Holocaust, we fight back.”

Amir Tsarfati, Israeli Jewish believer and President of Behold Israel, provides facts and biblical reminders from his popular Telegram channel. As you read these numbers, let’s pause to understand why Israel is determined to fight evil—instead of creating an acceptable image for a world almost totally aligned against it. In hate and propaganda, these misguided multitudes ignore the heartbreaking facts: Since October 7 of last year, 878 civilians were murdered in Israel, among them 53 children. More than 70,000 were hurt by terror attacks, 921 children have become orphans, and 119 bereaved parents have been left without any children.

Keep this fact in mind: It is Israel’s military policy to send texts and emails, make calls, and drop leaflets warning civilians to move to safe zones that the IDF itself creates in Gaza and now in Lebanon. No other army in the world enacts these efforts, which also mean greater risk for the IDF and increases loss of life for its members. The Islamic Regime and its surrogates like Hamas? Cowards and motivated by evil, they use human beings as shields, no matter what age, and take advantage of the humane Israeli policy of warning civilian populations.

Of course, the casualties aren’t all one-sided. Here is the IDF data from Amir Tsarfati’s Telegram at the one-year anniversary of the war: 17,000 terrorists eliminated in Gaza. Eight hundred terrorists eliminated in Lebanon (as of September 25), which included all of Hezbollah’s top leaders, and over 690 terrorists who live in Palestinian-run cities in Judea and Samaria, Israel’s biblical heartland.

Israel’s response to the outrage also includes Israeli Air Force strikes into Gaza (40,300), with another 4,900 airstrikes unleashed in the Lebanese arena. The number of rockets and missiles launched toward Israel are: 13,200 from Gaza, 12,400 from Lebanon, 60 from Iraq/Syria, 180 from Yemen 180, and 400 from Iran.
 
With IDF soldiers on the ground in both Gaza and Lebanon, that means more wounded, more loss of life: 726 casualties, with 346 since the beginning of the ground maneuver in Gaza. IDF soldiers injured: 4,576—696 of them seriously. Out of the total 2,299 were wounded since the beginning of ground operations in Gaza. The widespread trauma includes estimates that more than 100,000 Israelis have been refugees in their own country for a year.  

I invite you to click this link where you may read the names of 101 hostages that Hamas refuses to release. Some hostages are dead in the tunnels, yet Hamas will not release their bodies! This is the Hamas that hateful people glorify. Their ages range from little Kfir Bibas, kidnapped at 9 months, up to 86-year-old Shlomo Mansour.

What if they were your baby and your grandparent? Read and pray for them, their families and their friends awaiting the possible terrible knock on their door. #WeRememberOctober7

Agreeing with Golda is the right decision: that Israel will refrain from trying to please the world and instead defend its land from those who want to murder them!

Israel’s national companion in sorrow is miracles. An Israeli I now follow on X is Hillel Fuld, who describes himself as “a proud Zionist, a Jew, and global speaker.” Read and rejoice in a few of the miracles he highlights.

Israel has three layers of air defense systems, each a technological wonder, with special layers of deterrence that go higher and higher: the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow system (which detonates missiles that can fly outside of Earth’s atmosphere!). Hillel Fuld reports that on October 1, when the Islamic Regime barraged Israel with some 180 ballistic missiles, all three of these complex systems operated perfectly—and together! Bear in mind, the chances for perfection are next to “nonexistent.” If one ballistic missile hit an apartment building, shopping center, or Army base, Fuld said they “would now be burying hundreds of Israelis.” 

A WhatsApp message came in that night from one of Hillel Fuld’s good friends, a senior executive at Microsoft and “not a God-fearing Jew. Until yesterday.” His friend explained, “If you’re looking for miracles, last night, I started believing. Missiles hit all around me, but none of them hit my house, or any house for that matter.” Having practically no casualties is miraculous, but the rockets and missiles that weren’t intercepted landed in sand, water, and empty spaces. Hillel exclaims, “Have you been to Israel? It’s a microscopic country. What empty spaces? Where are these empty spaces?”

Hillel now calls it “the equivalent of God splitting the Red Sea right before our eyes.” And he added, “Along with Israel’s history-making accomplishments, beepers, and the unprecedented low ratio between combatants and civilians as a military operation the likes of which the world has never seen, ever.”

Here is my favorite comment from his description: “It was an incredible display between the two powers that protect the Jewish people, Hashim (God) and IDF.”

Join our CBN Israel team this week like King David praising God from 1 Chronicles 29:11-12. “Yours, LORD is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; You are exalted as Head overall. Wealth and honor come from You; You are the ruler of all things. In Your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.” 

Prayer Points: 

• Pray for God’s mercy and protection for the IDF and Israeli civilians.
• Pray for IDF leaders, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and soldiers in all branches. 
• Pray for Christians to simply re-post facts via social media. CBNIsrael.com and CBNNews.com are great sources! 
• Pray for the IDF to find terrorist Yahya Sinwar. If alive, he has surrounded himself with captive hostages.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Two key facts of past and contemporary history connecting U.S. military personnel and the Israel Defense Forces are well worth mentioning. Israel’s stunning operation in Lebanon between September 17–20 was so brilliant, and frankly unbelievable, that it matched or exceeded 007’s film exploits.

The IDF’s strategy was to weaponize “old school” electronic pagers and walkie-talkies (used only by terrorists) by activating them against leading Hezbollah fanatics and the fighters who used them. The numbers of killed and wounded terrorists are still rising, with speculations and reports blowing up in the media. Realizing that Hezbollah was set to ramp up its hate and terrorist activities against the Jewish nation, Israel’s military intelligence launched a wide scale bombardment of rocket and missile launchers that is now well underway.

Isaac Herzog, president of Israel, revealed that “senior commanders of the Radwan force were in the middle of planning an invasion into northern Galilee.” Radwan is the elite Hezbollah force founded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the early 1980s. At the time of last week’s detonation, its 16 Hezbollah leaders were meeting in the same underground room in Beirut. 

One extraordinary fact has materialized: Israel has eliminated terrorist Ibrahim Aqil, one of Hezbollah’s highest-ranking members. In 1983, Aqil helped engineer the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 United States military personnel: 220 Marines, eighteen sailors, and three soldiers. Also in 1983, Aqil/Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans. In the 41 years that Aqil has been on the run, the United States had a $7 million bounty for information about him.

The Israel Defense Forces have enacted justice for their nation, families, friends, and allies. 

The IDF is one of the bright lights shining amid the darkness of evil hanging over Israel and our world, while the Islamic Regime is fixated on rebuilding a dictatorial global caliphate.

Hezbollah said the so-called pager attack was “a massacre of pagers and radios.” It was not a massacre. It was a defensive act to defeat one of the vilest proxies backed by the Islamic Regime. It is called rightfulness—justice not only for the Americans murdered in 1983, but for the Hamas invasion, kidnappings, and hostage imprisonments (including Americans) in dark, putrid tunnels since October 7, 2023.

Most of the world has lost their bearings when it comes to recognizing the colossal difference between good and evil. The Islamic Regime and its surrogates are medieval in nature, with their beastly character and savage cruelty to victims—both within their own population and against Israel and others. While Iran accuses the IDF of violating international laws of war, the IDF—and the U.S. military—are the most humane fighting forces in the world.

The International Legal Forum (ILF) is composed of 4,000 lawyers in 40 countries who have advocated for Israel in legal battles since the October 7 Hamas massacre. These defenders of Israel combat terror and anti-Semitism in the international legal arena. ILF conducted an analysis about the pager attack. For context, it emphasizes the Hezbollah/Hamas connection as Iranian proxies to destroy Israel: 43 Jews and 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams murdered, and upwards of 100,000 Israelis displaced from the north. The report references United Nations Article 51, and Article 52 of the Geneva Convention agreeing that Israelis have the right to defend their country. Recall that Israel did not begin this war.

Because the electronic equipment was used by Hezbollah for military violations of international law, the IDF operation was targeting only Hezbollah, not civilians. ILF described it as “an extraordinary feat in modern warfare and textbook definition of a precision attack.” Israel used “principles of proportionality and distinction,” which Hamas and Hezbollah violate every time they attack civilians (including Arabs and Palestinians.) Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah had fired more than 8,000 rockets and missiles into Israel, a number that is now dramatically increasing.

Globally, there are so many anti-Israel, anti-Jewish demonstrators at universities, on city streets, and in assemblies to deface buildings and statues of historic value, they attack Jews and glorify terrorists, hatred, and violence. Obviously with no interest in matters of international law, they accept satan’s language of lies rather than God’s language of truths. 

While writing this week’s column, I remembered an exquisite poem written by Hannah Szenes (Senesh), a Hungarian Jewish poetess and playwright. Her contrast between darkness and light inspired me.

“There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.”

I wonder if the poetess was thinking of Genesis 15:5-6, where God promises Abram that His descendants “will be more numerous than the stars in the sky.” And why am I highlighting Hannah, who made Aliyah to Israel in 1939? She became a Zionist in Hungary, then moved to her ancestral homeland. The modern state had not come into being yet. The British—who ruled the country under the British Mandate after World War I through May 14, 1948—called it Palestine. On that day, the biblically correct name Israel replaced Palestine and declared its modern reestablishment.   

The British recruited 32 Jewish volunteers who lived in “Palestine.” Hannah became a Special Operations Executive paratrooper for England during World War II. In a dangerous, clandestine operation, the British army sent these elite paratroopers behind German lines to rescue Hungarian Jews before they could be deported to Auschwitz in 1944. In one of Hannah’s missions, Nazis arrested her at the Hungarian border and discovered the British military transmitter she used to send radio messages via wireless. Imprisoned in Nazi-occupied Hungary, she was tortured for months to reveal the codes used in her transmitter so they could trap the other parachutists. Hannah gave only her name, unwilling to betray her colleagues. Convicted of treason, she was executed by firing squad on November 7, 1944, at the age of 23.

I highlight Hannah because she remains a national treasured Israeli heroine. The songs and poems she wrote, her diary, and her legendary life of self-sacrifice are still remembered. Her remains are buried in the Parachutists section of Israel’s military cemetery on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. Her tombstone rests in Sdot Yam, the kibbutz where she first lived. Sdot Yam, beautifully situated on the Mediterranean near Haifa, is under threat today.

Hannah is one of the heroic Jewish stars described in her poem. I daresay, the IDF is lighting the way for the free world against the Islamic Regime that wants to steal our freedoms and impose their twisted way of life. Hannah’s “brilliance continues to light the world even though she is no longer among the living.” For the IDF—who now bravely sacrifice their lives—“they light the way for humankind.”

Like Hannah who used her British transmitter to communicate with her team to rescue the Hungarian Jews, the IDF does the same today. They brilliantly used pagers and walkie-talkies to eliminate the evildoers who want to kill them and destroy the world’s only Jewish homeland. Long Live Israel, Am Israel Chai, to Hannah and the modern IDF!

Join our CBN Israel team to pray for Israel during this world-changing war, remembering Psalm 147:4: “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.”

Prayer Points

• Pray for the IDF as they advance toward Lebanon to enact justice.
• Pray for wisdom for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his security cabinet.
• Pray for Lebanese Christians living under Hezbollah’s violence.
• Pray for Israel’s citizens who are now refugees, displaced from their homes.
• Pray for 500,000 Israelis forced to duck in and out of bomb shelters.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Last year, Israelis celebrated their new year (Rosh Hashanah, “head of the year”) on September 15–17. Happy holiday (chag sameach) greetings rang out while Jewish families dipped delicious apples into fresh honey, a symbol for a sweet new year. Yet just 22 days later, on October 7, the bitter fruit of terror buried itself into Jewish minds and hearts when Hamas terrorists launched a shocking invasion into the Jewish ancestral homeland.

This year, a series of Jewish observances in October begins with Rosh Hashanah on October 3–4, based on Israel’s lunar calendar for the year 5,785. Three days later, on October 7, the nation’s anguish will be amplified as Israel marks the unspeakable on its one-year anniversary. As of today, 101 hostages are still imprisoned, upwards of 100,000 Israelis are refugees in their own land, Israeli casualties stand at 1,660—all while the world’s biblically illiterate label Israel as the aggressor, not the victim.

Israelis will exert themselves as much as they possibly can to greet the new year while seated at Rosh Hashanah tables. Chairs that had once been filled with family and friends laughing, joking, cooking, and eating will be unoccupied. Other chairs will remain empty, representing Israelis murdered by terrorists who ingest the poison of hatred as IDF soldiers defend their nation in an eight-front war. The dreaded day—October 7, 2024—then arrives, where Israelis relive their trauma. The Israeli version of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, should have a new name: perpetual traumatic stress disorder. Because it never ends. That fact remains a harsh reality, a mental health issue shared by almost everyone.

On October 12, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, follows. On this, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Israel shuts down amid prayer and fasting. Israelis cannot help but wonder if an act of terror will happen again on this holy day. After all, it was on October 6, 1973, that Egyptian and Syrian forces surprised Israel with an attack—also on Yom Kippur. Miraculously, the IDF repelled them.

Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is next in line, celebrated from October 17 to 23. For this fall harvest festival, Israelis build temporary shelters, some in grassy yards or perched on their apartment balconies, and gaily decorate them for meals and sleepovers. Sukkot is a remembrance of Israel’s 40-year desert journey, when the Israelites lived in temporary shelters after escaping Egypt.

Famous British Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks left a legacy of brilliant quotes. Here’s one I particularly like about Sukkot: “Sitting in the [shelter] under its canopy of leaves, I often think of my ancestors and their wanderings across Europe in search of safety, and I begin to understand how faith was their only home,” he wrote. “It was fragile, chillingly exposed to the storms of prejudice and hate. But it proved stronger than superpowers and outlived them all.”

God’s sovereign promises assure us that Israel “will outlive them all” in Jeremiah 31:35-36. “This is what the LORD says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD Almighty is His name. Only if these decrees vanish from My sight, declares the LORD, will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.”

The eighth day of Sukkot is called Shemini Atzeret, with Simchat Torah (“Rejoicing of the Torah”) taking place immediately afterward on October 24. The elegantly encased Torah scrolls are gently carried throughout synagogues and reverently touched with the joy of receiving God’s law.

However, for Israelis looking toward Simchat Torah on October 24 this year, the invasion on October 7 last year will be a terrible reminder that the horror took place on Simchat Torah—traditionally a day devoted to reading the Torah. Last year’s Rejoicing of the Torah simply did not take place. In one sense, though, the many stories of heroism on and after October 7, now continuously shared almost a year later, follow closely the Jewish value of “tikkun olam”—repairing the world—with lifesaving rescues of those attacked, wounded, or in need of help emerging from citizens for citizens. 

Throughout the millennia, those who harbor hatred toward Jews and Israel sometimes seem to favor destruction on important Jewish calendar days. The 1973 Yom Kippur war is an example. In making his multi-part documentary titled October 7th, 2023, filmmaker Dan Gordon researched and made a lesser-known discovery about October 7. He learned that “October 7 was a direct descendant of the massacres in the ancient Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tzfat, Tiberius and others in the 1920s and ’30s … long before there was even a state of Israel.”

Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, is viewed as the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. On it, Jews mourn tragedies in their history, especially the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the city of Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago. In the last 100 years, Tisha B’Av has included a day of mourning for Jewish communities massacred in the Middle East, North Africa, the pogroms of Eastern Europe, and the Holocaust. On Tisha B’Av 2024, August 12–13, the link between Tisha B’Av and October 7 shaped up as a major theme where thousands of synagogues across all Jewish denominations incorporated texts about October 7. Many predict that the October 7 onslaught will be canonized into Jewish liturgy.

Kindnesses from Christians toward any Jewish friends, synagogues, or Jewish organizations in your community are timely leading into and during the month of October. Send a letter, card, or email with a compassionate message. Attend an October 7 event that may be taking place near where you live. Include prayers for Jews, who are a population of only 15 million people globally, including around 245,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors in more than 90 countries. 

Amid the anguish embedded in Jewish citizenry, God repeatedly emphasizes His assurances in Scripture. Presently, the dangers Israel itself is facing are complex and appear beyond any solution. That is, until we fasten our hopes for ourselves within God’s promises and for the worldwide Jewish community.

Most importantly, in Isaiah 46:4 the God of the universe assures humankind about Israel, the apple of His eye. “I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” And that, God has done for thousands of years!

We welcome you to join our CBN Israel team to pray for Israel this week in the lead-up to October, always aware that Israel is our spiritual homeland through Jesus our Savior.

Prayer Points:

• Pray for shalom and strength for Israeli Jews in October.
• Pray about how you can reach out to Jews with kindnesses.
• Pray for IDF members who are increasing their defenses against Hezbollah.
• Pray for Prime Minister Netanyahu for his protection and wisdom.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, regularly encounters walls of opposition that seem to tower far above Israel’s Western Wall, a remaining treasure of Israel’s Second Temple retaining wall (Kotel).

Alongside Jewish prayers, the Kotel’s crevices are filled with the prayers of Christians from all over the globe. The crevices of our hearts are also filled with prayers for Israel’s strength and safety as the earthly homeland of our Savior Jesus. No matter where we live, special prayers for Bibi must now rise to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The book of Psalms, a Jewish hymnbook, is replete with prayers and songs from King David under siege that are most apt for this time.

The weight on the prime minister’s shoulders—and the nation—grew heavier when Hamas monsters murdered six hostages, knowing the IDF was close to rescuing these six innocent souls. In a speech on September 7, 2024, Netanyahu spoke as a younger brother whose older brother had died in a heroic IDF rescue operation 48 years before.

On July 3, 1976, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu headed Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. They famously rescued Jewish civilian hostages after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—which also included two German members of the notorious Baader-Meinhof Gang—skyjacked an Air France flight out of Tel Aviv. The Jewish passengers had already been singled out by the Palestinian and German terrorists, who confiscated their passports. The non-Jewish hostages were released. The plane landed in Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed by Idi Amin, the vicious Ugandan dictator. In a shootout with the skyjackers, Lt. Col. Netanyahu and three hostages were killed.

Bibi’s remarks last weekend reveal a brother who knows firsthand the emotions of a family member murdered by terrorists: [watch here]. Netanyahu observes that the Entebbe rescue and his brother’s death “changed the course” of his life.

Israelis have elected Bibi’s Likud party, where he served as its leader six separate times: in 1996, 2009, and was reelected in 2013, 2015, 2020 and 2022. He is consistently articulate in his assessment of the Islamic Regime and its proxies in what is currently an eight-front war: Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Jordanian border, West Bank, and cyberwarfare. Already, a network of 19 websites has been identified as Iranian propaganda against the Jewish state aimed at the United States, Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and South America. Lies against Netanyahu are prevalent.

However, after the news of the six hostage murders, upwards of 500,000 protesters filled streets in Israel last weekend. One sign vilified the prime minister: “Executed by Hamas, Abandoned by Netanyahu.” Don’t the murders of these six Jewish souls, so close to rescue, confirm that Hamas does not want peace? All they must do is release all hostages and lay down their weapons of war.

It is easy to agree that the Israeli level of PTSD—estimated to cost the Israeli economy more than $50 billion over the next five years—transitions into frustration, tears, and outrage in 11 months of war. Israel’s vibrant democracy is at work amid their stress, yet not all Israelis are demanding the same solution. The divided population pleads on one hand for a ceasefire now to free the remaining hostages. The other side does not want the IDF to stop its many successes—defeating its enemies to eliminate future threats that are sure to come.

Pivotal in the national divide right now is the Philadelphi Corridor, a nine-mile-long, 100-yard-wide strip on the Israel-Egypt border. Hamas demands that Israel exit totally before they will agree to any truce. Israel and the U.S. say NO.

In a September 2 news conference Netanyahu rightly pointed out, “The axis of evil needs the Philadelphi Corridor, and for that reason we must control the Philadelphi Corridor” [emphasis mine]. His decades-long threat comprehension is based on the IDF discovering and blowing up dozens of tunnels running from Egypt into Gaza, a business bonanza for terror. Large trucks, intact weaponry, and personnel have used the tunnels for years to further their goal of killing every Jewish man, woman, and child. The proof is overwhelming. Netanyahu wisely does not trust one Hamas word amid their psychological games about the hostages’ possible release if Israel agrees to the terrorists’ outrageous demands.

Most of the world, its leaders, and part of Israel’s citizens think that Hamas will somehow compromise. Nadav Argaman, former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, accuses Netanyahu of simply being power hungry. In a September 7 Israeli TV interview, he alleged that Netanyahu “knows very well that no smuggling takes place over the Philadelphi Corridor. So, we are now relegated to living with this imaginary figment.” 

Argaman’s shocking “imaginary figment” idea is the opposite of IDF reports. Additionally, more than 35,000 reserve officers in Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF) from all branches of the Israeli security forces disagree. The IDSF founder is Chairman Brigadier General (ret.) Amir Avivi.

The IDSF describes its mission as “a Zionist, security-based movement, whose aim is to position Israel’s security as the top national priority … which ensures the sovereignty of the Jewish people in their homeland for generations to come.” They correctly add, “Part of Israel’s security must be anchored in its ability to protect itself, by itself.” In a letter to the prime minister, one of their extraordinarily experienced military assessments is worth reading. (Note: Prime Minister Netanyahu was also a member of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit during his IDF service.)

A quote in the IDSF letter: “Over the standing of the Philadelphi Corridor in the hostage deal, our professional opinion is that to claim that the hostage deal may include a temporary withdrawal of several weeks from the Philadelphi Corridor is to deceive the public, materially endanger the hostages’ lives, and possibly reverse many of the IDF’s achievements in the war. It may even mean needless shedding of our soldiers’ blood in areas that were already captured and cleared, or at the hands of a Hamas immeasurably more dangerous once it returns to battle.” In reality, the Islamic Regime and its proxies, enslaved by demonic hatred, will not compromise.

With 25 years in the pro-Israel movement, I have heard and seen the Prime Minister up close in the U.S., on many trips to Israel including the GPO Christian Media Summits, and online with his repeated comment about the Christian community, “We have no better friends on earth than you.” Let us pledge our friendship in prayer and action for Israel’s security-wise yet beleaguered Prime Minister.

Our CBN Israel team invites you to join us in prayers for Bibi. Prime Minister Netanyahu understands the vast divide between good and evil and so do we. Isaiah 5:20 reminds us: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

Prayer Points:

• Pray for Bibi’s physical and mental health to remain stable with supernatural shalom. 
• Pray that toxic disagreements with the prime minister will dissolve into a united front for Israeli victory. 
• Pray for Netanyahu and his family’s safety and for his vigilant security detail.
• Pray for Prime Minister Netanyahu as he is scheduled to speak on September 26, 2024, at the UN General Assembly.

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

On September 1, Israel celebrated in a wave of joy. The Israel Defense Forces had found the Bedouin-Muslim Israeli hostage Farhan al-Qadi alive in a tunnel. Yet after his rescue, countrywide joy was quickly extinguished by another unspeakable horror that swept through Israel with the force of a lightning bolt. The IDF found the bodies of six murdered hostages in a tunnel below Rafah—less than a mile away from the tunnel where they had rescued al-Qadi. In an act of unimaginable cruelty, terrorists had executed the hostages shortly before soldiers reached them.

The world must understand the beastly nature of these murderers. In the words of Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida: “The instructions issued to the guards are clear on what to do if the occupying army comes close to a site of detention.” Let this demonic Hamas policy sink in: They murdered six hostages because the IDF troops came too close to where they were keeping them imprisoned.

Can you imagine the devastation the brave soldiers must have experienced when they found the bodies of these six souls and reverently carried their bodies into their homeland? The act of releasing the six hostages—and all hostages—could have been an eloquent Hamas statement to the world for a ceasefire and true peace. But such a thing is not in their DNA. Murdering Jews, all Jews, non-Jewish citizens, and Palestinians is Hamas’s agenda.

It gets worse. Hamas executed these six people by shooting them multiple times at close range. After examining the hostages’ bullet-ridden bodies, forensic experts reported that they were murdered likely on August 29 or 30 after surviving 11 months in captivity. As you read their names, pray for their families and the entire nation since every citizen considers them as sons and daughters: Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, and Israeli citizens Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Alexander Lubnov, 32, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25.

The New York Times described the six slain as “killed.” CNN said Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin “died.” Mainstream media, take note! Murdered and executed are the correct verbs here!

The victims’ grief-stricken families are holding funerals all over Israel. Hundreds of people line the streets and thousands attend funerals. Israeli flags draped over caskets are wet with tears. The wailing of many mothers fills the air. A Rabbi declares, “The whole of Israel is crying today.” A funeral attendee commented at Eden Yerushalmi’s funeral, “I never met her, but she’s family.”

Another phrase is often heard, “At least they are home now.” Profound words. They have been true for thousands of years. The Jewish hostages are now home in their ancestral homeland.

Over the centuries, the Jewish community has existed in joy and in horror. When troops found Farhan al-Qadi in a Rafah tunnel on August 27, the jubilation had no boundary. Israel, regularly accused of apartheid against its non-Jewish population, celebrated in every community—the Jewish majority as well as minority communities of Christians, Arabs, and Druze. The 52-year-old security guard kidnapped from a business near Gaza spent more than 10 months in Hamas tunnels. This father of 11 is a citizen, a Bedouin-Muslim Israeli.

Weak, malnourished, and united with his family in the hospital, Farhan al-Qadi talked about living in almost total darkness. One hostage was captive for two months and died next to him. Farhan was shot in the leg when kidnapped, but Hamas operated on him without anesthesia. He commented, “We must remember that there are other people inside [the tunnels].” He also explained that being a native Arabic speaker did not help him. Al-Qadi was one of six Bedouins kidnapped on October 7, according to the Prime Minister’s office. Bedouins hold Israeli citizenship and have extensive familial ties that stretch into Gaza.

The IDF is making tremendous progress in Gaza, especially by securing the Philadelphi Corridor between Israel and Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes it clear that if the IDF were to leave Philadelphi, Hamas would be able to rearm, revive, and repeat October 7. Netanyahu is right. He knows that the death cult of crazed Hamas cowardice continues.

However, with Yahya Sinwar—the Gaza-based architect of evil—in charge no hostage or ceasefire deal is possible. Of the terror trio of Hamas “leaders,” he is the only one left after the IDF eliminated Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif in July. Now, Sinwar is Israel’s most wanted terrorist. An IDF spokesman says he is “a dead man walking.” The IDF’s latest assessments show that 6,000 of Sinwar’s murderous thugs breached the Holy Land on October 7, 2023—nearly double the number initially reported—and that many of these were elite forces.

Sinwar now hides out in tunnels—some 15 stories deep. For protection, he encircles himself with hostages handcuffed together. Taking hostages as human shields is a war crime under international law. Yet it is Hamas’s habitual, cowardly custom to frequently hide behind Palestinian civilians and hostages. Unfortunately, much of the world does not care about Hamas’s war crimes and has adopted an unthinkable terror mindset by wondering why Israel must defeat unconcealed aggression.

Sinwar has fulfilled the meaning of his last name. Sin and War—a thoroughly appropriate name for murderous sin and the immoral war that has shockingly circled the globe with Jew hatred, lawlessness, and anti-Israel propaganda.

The IDF has collected intelligence indicating tunnels where they could eliminate the notoriously elusive Sinwar, yet attacks were never authorized due to the hostages’ dangerous proximity to him. When he ventures outside, he is dressed as a woman.

A glance into Sinwar’s mindset is revealing. In 1989, when he was 27 years old, Israel imprisoned Sinwar for kidnapping and murdering two IDF soldiers and four Palestinians he deemed to be collaborators with Israel. He got four life sentences plus 25 years. Then, in the controversial 2011 prisoner exchange negotiation, the “Shalit deal,” Hamas freed Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier. Israel agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Sinwar—who had served just 22 years and was never again supposed to see the light of day—was among them.

His humane treatment in an Israeli prison is a picture of Israel’s humanity: During Sinwar’s 23-year imprisonment, he was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. A Jewish doctor successfully operated on him, saving his life. However, the Jewish doctor’s mercy only turned into more hatred inside Sinwar’s brain. Mercy mattered not.

Meanwhile the IDF continues its policy to protect Palestinian Gazan civilians as best as possible, although it means much higher risk for soldiers. Pray for IDF soldiers who are operating in tunnels rigged with Hamas explosives. They press in amid one of the most complex wars in history, both above ground and in the underground city dubbed “Gaza Metro”—a product of Sinwar’s upgraded tunnel system that’s big enough for trucks, cars, and weapons smuggling. The IDF reports that Hamas is still holding 101 hostages captive—97 abducted on October 7 and four hostages who had been abducted previously.

As we read about Sinwar, righteous anger can arise, and depression can deepen. In the meantime, we stand with Israel and the Jewish community worldwide in prayer and help. Pray that the world will understand the biblical contrast between good and evil.

Our CBN Israel team invites you to join with us reading Psalm 37:1-2, a reminder from the God of the Universe: Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

Prayer points:

• Pray for the Israeli families who have lost their innocent sons and daughters.
• Pray for the soldiers who with broken hearts carried their bodies home.
• Pray for the entire nation during another intense season of mourning.
• Pray with thankfulness for Farhan al-Qadi’s rescue.
• Pray for IDF members involved in complex hostage rescue efforts.
• Pray for Prime Minister Netanyahu leading under internal and external pressures. 

Arlene Bridges Samuels is the weekly feature columnist for CBN Israel since 2020. Working on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as their SE Regional Outreach Director for nine years, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as the Leadership Outreach Director part-time for their project American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, is published at AllIsrael.com and The Jerusalem Connection, and has traveled to Israel since 1990. By invitation, she attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits as part of Christian media worldwide.  In 2024, Arlene and her husband Paul co-authored Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and Other Mental Illnesses. www.TheMentalHealthMeltdown.com.