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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

A special box of beautiful and useful Israeli-made products arrives at our front door several times a year. Ordering merchandise made in Judea and Samaria is one way to support Israelis, especially now during the war being carried out by the Islamic Regime. Our box was shipped from Lev Haolam, a subscription gift box service operating in the Judean hills south of Jerusalem. The company bears a profound Hebrew name. In English it means heart of the world (Lev, heart and haolam, the world).

A few years ago, when I visited Shiloh in the Judean Hills of Samaria, a sense of awe filled my every step. This was the Tabernacle’s resting place for 369 years, built before the First Temple. Eli, Hanna, and Samuel walked in Shiloh, which is biblically described as Israel’s first capital. Shiloh’s Hebrew name means “tranquil” or “He Whose it is.”

But since October 7, attacks, assaults, and arson—supported and celebrated by most Arab Palestinians living in what the world calls the West Bank—are turning the heartland into a hotbed of hatred. The Islamic Republic of Iran is making the West Bank Palestinians into another powerful proxy.

The lackluster name West Bank is in essence a moniker, a nickname that holds little meaning except perhaps to a broad swath of politicians, leftists, Arabs, and the secular world. West Bank is simply the west bank or west side of the Jordan River in Israel. Keep in mind that the name West Bank—used since 1950—and the ancient names Judea and Samaria refer to the same location. However, most Jews and Christians who respect the Bible refer to it as Judea and Samaria or the biblical heartland.

Threats are mounting against the heartland’s 500,000 Jewish citizens. The U.S. government estimates that 3 million Palestinians live in Judea and Samaria. It is lopsided when it comes to 500,000 overwhelmingly peaceful Israeli citizens and far too many Arabs brainwashed with mind-altering hatred.

Cities in the biblical heartland that are governed by the Palestinian Authority—cities like Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, and Kalkilya—are now direct proxies of the Islamic Regime. It is another battle in Israel’s existential war against terror with an Iranian weapons pipeline that began in 2005. Simply put, Iran’s current route from Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Syria (which borders Israel and Jordan), means increasingly advanced weapons are smuggled into the West Bank. Now you may understand why, for almost 20 years, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were forced to go into Palestinian cities—and that formerly unsophisticated, disorganized attack locales have been transformed into Palestinian terror strongholds. The Islamic Regime is also committing a violation of Jordanian sovereignty, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1994.

In his July 8 article on IsraelHayom.com, David M. Weinberg outlines some of the statistics, writing that “more than 5,000 Palestinian bomb, car-ramming, knifing, and shooting attacks a year [are] aimed at killing Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria.” Thus far this year, the increasing terror threats since the Hamas War have required Israel to “eliminate 450 terrorists in Judea and Samaria” with “more than 60 Israeli brigade-level raids” and arrest 3,600 suspected terrorists. In fact, some 8,000 Israeli reservists are stationed nearby in the heartland.

As one of many smuggling examples, in March IDF and Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security) discovered an entire arsenal. They seized large fragmentation bombs, five anti-tank weapons, four grenade launchers, 31 rocket-propelled grenades, five advanced explosive mechanisms, 25 grenades, 50 guns, and more! IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) are favorites that Palestinians use to plant in the ground. These IEDs are not conventional warfare, and the terrorists are using them more frequently in the biblical heartland. Recently, two IDF soldiers were killed by these roadside bombs, which are planted inside Palestinian refugee camps, towns, and residential neighborhoods.

Israel’s security in the heartland is exceedingly worrisome when it comes to IEDs. These deadly devices are easy to make in most any size and can be buried even under concrete. The Times of Israel reports that since January, Palestinians have thrown more than 1,000 IEDs at Israeli troops. In addition, the IDF has disarmed more than 50 weapons labs and found and disarmed 150 IEDs. The IDF is now pointedly and quickly ramping up the formerly porous Jordanian-Israeli border with, among other assets, a Military Intelligence Satellite Unit 9900 in the heartland. In April’s Iranian barrage of drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles against Israel, the Jordanians helped the U.S., UK, France, and Israel deflect 99 percent of the torrent, realizing that they themselves were in the danger zone.

The Palestinian terrorists are fast becoming more proficient in their goal to murder Jewish men, women, and children. The years-long grassroots attacks, definitely a terrible reality, are quickly becoming more of a force to be reckoned with. In addition, the word complexity takes on another dimension when it comes to the geographical makeup of Judea and Samaria. Here in the biblical heartland, Jewish and Palestinian towns and villages are closely interwoven within irregularly shaped and geographically unorganized enclaves of Arabs and Jews. 

With hundreds of thousands of active and reserve soldiers defending Israel, the biblical heartland is more vulnerable than ever—especially in their puzzle-piece communities of Arabs and Jews. Even the women, as an example, are stepping into their security gap by arming themselves and training on the gun ranges. Several of the women voiced this necessity: “My husband was conscripted, and I needed a tool to save my children.” Another observed, “It’s only a matter of time before they [terrorists] come and it won’t surprise me. I’ll do everything not to be slaughtered in bed.” An additional comment referred to the Bible, “I decided to become a fighter, like women from our history.”

One of the skilled women trainers said that every time she comes to the gun ranges, she thinks to herself, “It is in the name of God, for my home and family.” As a mother, that would be my reasoning too. And every time I receive and touch products from Israel’s heartland, I am interacting with God’s eternal Holy Land where in the Bible Samaria is mentioned 117 times and Judea, 817 times.

Claims made about Judea and Samaria belonging to Arabs are not a fact in reliable history books, most especially in the Bible, which outlines God’s land deed to the Jews’ ancestral homeland. The Holy Land remains as “God’s, Whose it is.” One day, in the Sovereign of the Universe’s timing, tranquility will reign!

Our CBN Israel team welcomes you to join us this week to pray by recalling God’s ironclad promise to Israel: “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’” (Jeremiah 31:35–36).

Prayer Points:

• Pray for widespread security for all Jewish citizens in Judea and Samaria.
• Pray for IDF success to stop weapons smuggling into Palestinian-run towns.
• Pray for Israel as it ramps up its defenses against Hezbollah on its northern border.
• Pray for more Christians to order products from Judea and Samaria.
• Pray for Jordan’s continuing cooperation with Israel.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. By invitation, Arlene attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits. She also hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Psychological traumas remain ever-present among Israel’s 7.4 million-plus Jewish population. That’s why, month after month, mental health professionals in Israel are busy developing new research and programs to meet the needs of the small, traumatized nation.

After October 7, 2023, Israel’s citizens experienced a new kind of trauma when Hamas broke through Israel’s complex border security systems, murdered 1,200 Israelis, and kidnapped around 250 hostages. It was a day when Israelis suffered the most egregious losses in one 24-hour period since the Holocaust, this time on their own soil.

Based on ancient Jewish history in the hymnbook of Israel, King David describes his own mental health in Psalm 120:6-7: “Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” In Psalm 31:9-24 David asks God for mercy, saying in verses 10 and 13, “I am consumed by anguish. … I hear many whispering ‘terror on every side.’” And herein some of David’s long-ago assessments of his life could easily apply to Israelis living next to Hamas and Hezbollah—who “hate peace.”

During an enlightening panel at Israel’s Ono Academic College, PhD psychologist and author Pamela Paresky described the October 7 trauma as “unique” and wondered if another term might be more fitting than “trauma.” For example, “shattering” conveys a stronger meaning than the word “trauma,” she stated. Paresky observed that Israelis are also not allowing terrorists to rob them of their joy, but instead are filled with “a firm determination to cherish life and live life to its fullest.” Adding that “Jews are strongest” after their enemies try to break them, she addressed the lack of critical thinking among those currently protesting Israel’s response to Hamas—especially on university campuses where they rely on “logical inversions” that create oppressors and victims, naming Jews as the oppressors.

As an aside to Israel’s increasing mental health initiatives, I discovered a phrase coined by the late actor Mark Venturini. While it had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, it is descriptive of worldwide Jew hatred: “The eyes are useless when the mind is blind.” Despite terrorists’ body cams recording hours of horrors—and 4,000 journalists viewing these—millions of minds are blind despite the evidence so many have witnessed with their own eyes. Clearly, mainstream media has aided and abetted the whipped-up emotional responses by locking into, for example, the Hamas Health Ministry’s inflated statistics about Palestinian deaths and instantly accusing Israel of inhumane acts rather than Hamas, a world-designated terror organization backed by the Islamic regime.   

Despite those lies and accusations, the classic Israeli response to tragedy and crisis—and their persistent search for solutions—often results in creative new ways not only to address the Jewish nation’s unique challenges but also in discoveries that bless the world. One solution undertaken by Hebrew University is its Institute for Traumatic Stress and Recovery. Their pioneering research to address trauma among Israeli children held hostage in Gaza could someday benefit children around the world—children who have been scarred by traumatic events of violence or natural disasters.

Professor Asher Ben-Arieh, one of Israel’s highly regarded experts in childhood trauma, remarked about the hostage children, “These experiences are beyond anything we have seen.” Part of the National Task Force to care for children who were abducted, Ben-Arieh mentions that the Hebrew University program urgently needs complete funding “for a stable center to think out of the box,” he said. “And we need it urgently. We’re not even post trauma. We are not past this. It’s still happening!”

It is disturbing to read the National Task Force’s descriptions of six groups of vulnerable children: child hostages; those who witnessed severe violence and murders; newly orphaned children; children who lost a parent, sibling, or other relatives; children whose friends or peers were killed or kidnapped; and children displaced from their homes. (About 200,000 Israelis and many thousands of children are internal refugees displaced for security reasons due to Hamas and Hezbollah’s aggression.)

Ben-Arieh noted than many parents on October 7 could not save their children. He pointed out, “We have new forms of trauma that we don’t understand.” Updated training for mental health professionals is also part of Israel’s efforts to provide help and comfort. Amid reports that hundreds of thousands of Israelis are in acute psychological distress, an outpouring of those in counseling-related professions have volunteered to become involved. Metiv-Israel Psychotrauma Center in Jerusalem calls such training “mental health first-aid,” where PTSD specialists are instructing other psychologists who want to help but don’t know how. An accredited course is now in place to train psychologists who hold at least a master’s degree.

After reading about Israel’s traumas, if you are compelled to act, The Israel Forever Foundation offers letter writing, a small action that carries big results of encouragement. To participate in their Letters of Friendship program, click here. Choose whom to write to—a lone soldier, a terror victim, Holocaust survivor, or someone with special needs. Simply submit on their website—and your solidarity blessing is on its way.

We welcome you this week to join with our CBN Israel team to pray with King David these closing verses from Psalm 31:14-16. “But as for me, I trust in You, LORD, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. Make Your face shine upon Your servant; save me for Your mercies’ sake.”

Prayer Points:

• Pray for Israel’s efforts to help those suffering from trauma and PTSD.
• Pray for the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza and comfort for their families.
• Pray for the safety and success of IDF soldiers as they defend their nation and people.
• Pray for the IDF to be vigilant and cautious in detecting Hamas-planted IEDs.
• Pray for the thousands of wounded soldiers and their families.
• Pray for families who are grieving the deaths of their soldiers, now numbering 319.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. By invitation, Arlene attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits. She also hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Like a ship gradually coming loose from its moorings, the U.S.-Israel relationship is heading into rough waters. It’s facing enormous controversy between the President of the United States and Israel’s Prime Minister. The waves of conflict are out in the open, with Biden telegraphing unmistakable signals to Israel—first about pulling back from Rafah in southern Gaza, and now about Israelis backing off from defending themselves against Hezbollah in the north.

In May, Biden threatened the Middle East’s only democracy about moving into Rafah, saying he would halt some shipments of American weapons into Israel. Netanyahu responded, “I hope we can see eye to eye with the United States. We’re talking to them, but ultimately we do what we have to do to protect the life of our nation.” Netanyahu has also made it clear that Israel will not leave Gaza “until we return all 120 of our hostages, both the living and dead.”

Amid the contention on the global stage, the U.S., EU, Qatar, and other countries are demanding that Israel secure the safety of Gazan civilians. However, mostly overlooked, Israel has repeatedly set up safe zones up and down Gaza, and successfully moved about 1 million Gazans from Rafah into well-defined safe zone boundaries with tents, food, and water. To infer that Israel is lax in its determination to protect civilians undermines the long-held humanitarian policies of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In fact, Israel’s own policies of warning Gazans in advance has increased deaths and injuries among Israel’s military. No other country on earth lets its enemies know when they are coming.

Meanwhile, Israel is “doing what it must do to protect the life” of Israel by moving ahead with important inroads to rid Rafah of the Hamas terrorists. This, despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s observation in a June 23 interview that “there has been a dramatic decline in the supply of munitions from the United States.”

However, the IDF’s biggest shock was yet to come. In Rafah, they discovered some 50 sophisticated tunnels—likely Egyptian engineered—some of which are large enough to drive trucks through from Egypt into Gaza. This means that Egypt, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1980, has raked in millions of dollars from large-sized weapons flowing into Gaza.

During the hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israel’s Deputy Attorney General Gilad Noam attempted to persuade that assembly with those facts. “Nearly 700 tunnel shafts have been identified in Rafah,” he stated. “These tunnels are used by Hamas to supply itself with weapons and ammunition.” Further, he warned, they could “potentially be used to smuggle out of Gaza hostages or Hamas senior operators.” Unfortunately, these unbelievable findings made no difference to the UN court, which ordered Israel not to go into Rafah.

It’s been nothing short of a miracle—the IDF first moving a million Gazans out of harm’s way, then going in with their decision as a sovereign nation, and then making these major discoveries. And the combined pushback that Israel now knows about may be just the tip of the iceberg about which leaders are complicit, in additional disturbing ways.

For an in-depth explanation of Rafah’s importance, the perspective of Brigadier General Amir Avivi is quite revealing. Rafah—the last Hamas stronghold—is located on the Egyptian border. The combined Egypt/Rafah/Hamas role serves as the economic engine for Hamas’s terrorists and weapons shipments. Hamas has four battalions of thousands of hate-motivated men in Rafah. The IDF is also discovering more evidence of the Hamas terror mindset and practices: weapons stored under baby cribs and terrorists operating tunnels under the UNRWA headquarters.

Despite the intensely complex challenges in Rafah, last Sunday IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. General Halevi, in his briefing to the IDF in Rafah reported good news: that “they’re about to finish off Rafah’s brigade of four battalions.” It is one of the biggest, most important achievements in the war against terror that the Philadelphi Corridor is now controlled by IDF Division 162. The corridor runs the full length of the Egypt-Gaza border. Halevi said the hard-fought victory will “prevent Hamas from its smuggling operations.”

Had Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military leaders backed down from entering Rafah, where the IDF destroyed tunnels and took control of the Philadelphi Corridor, Hamas would have continued to transport Iran-financed weapons into Gaza with Egypt as an accomplice. Hamas’s evil intent to murder every Jew has not changed. More weapons mean more attacks and assaults launched against the Jewish nation.

Looking up to the north on Israel’s tense border with Lebanon, Hezbollah is endangering the Christian Lebanese population speaking out against it. In eight months, the terrorist organization has already fired 5,000 projectiles into Israel, killing 25 Israelis (both civilian and soldiers). More than 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate from their homes shortly after the Hamas war began. Twenty thousand acres are burned and nearly 1,000 homes and large parts of the towns have been destroyed.

The Hezbollah all-out war is a reality. President Biden has already told Israel not to engage with Hezbollah because it might “risk drawing Iran in.” Truth be told, last fall Biden unfroze Iran’s billions and sent the cash to the Islamic Regime. Add Biden’s unwise effort to resuscitate the ineffectual 2015 Iran deal, and now the Middle East is heading toward a potential World War III footing.     

Biden doubled down through his Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Charles Brown commented, “The U.S. will NOT be able to assist Israel in the war against Hezbollah as it assisted it in intercepting the missile and drone attack from Iran in April.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu needs no advice or lessons from President Biden. Again, Netanyahu responded as the strong leader of his endangered, yet eternal nation in a speech to Knesset on Sunday: “At any cost and in any way, we will thwart Iran’s intentions to destroy us.” As he spoke to the leaders and press in the room, he reminded the world that Israel is currently “in an existential war of seven fronts.”

Our CBN Israel team invites you to pray with us amid Israel’s dark days, knowing that God keeps His word in His time. Exodus 23:31 promises, “I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.”

Prayer Points:

• Pray for the IDF during their preparations for an expanded defensive war against Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
• Pray for Israeli families that have lost sons recently fighting for their country.
• Pray for American Jews who have been attacked by pro-Hamas activists in their synagogues, homes, and streets.
• Pray for Christians across the globe to express their commitment in words and deed toward Jewish friends near and far.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. By invitation, Arlene attends Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summits. She also hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.