Category: Bomb Shelter Bibles

27 Dec, 2023, Samaria:  They also lied and said his mother was a captive when in reality, her kidnappers had failed to take her.  They captured the boy Eitan and his father, Ohad,  separately.  Bat-Sheva his mother along with his two little sisters escaped while on the way into Gaza, when their kidnappers were confronted by an Israeli tank. Ohad, their father and husband, is still in captivity, condition unknown.

When Eitan and his kidnappers arrived in Gaza, the “peaceful civilians of Gaza” beat him in the street.

“That was a frightening experience,” he said.

“Eitan Yahalomi was also told his mother was abducted, and only found out she had evaded capture when he himself was set free.”

Eitan is now in a new and unfamiliar town, and getting into school once again, but with a completely different group of kids.

Pray and Donate to assist our work.

Source:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/freed-12-year-old-hostage-says-captors-told-him-israel-had-been-destroyed/

26 Dec 2023, Samaria:  The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has ramped up attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, seemingly pushing them further away from the border.  Hard to tell what’s really happening there.

More prayer is needed for these situations.

Pray and Support our work.

26 Dec 2023, Samaria: Residents have said they heard explosions and sounds of digging under their homes, but the Regional Council says–with little investigation–that it has found no evidence.

Proper investigation will be required.

Yet, I think this is true. Why? Because I trust the people who heard the noises under their homes more than the local council officials who probably showed up for 5 minutes out of their busy day and said, “I don’t hear any noises!”

The truth won’t be known until there’s a proper investigation. Until then, I personally believe the homeowners.

Pray and Sow into our Work.

26 Dec 2023, Samaria: In the 2014 Israel Hamas war of 50 days, the ratio of Gazans killed turned out to be about 50/50. 50% were militants, 50% were noncombatants in Gaza. This time it’s shaping up to be an estimated 40/60 ratio. The war is currently over 80 days and may last at least 100 days overall.

“Senior IDF lawyer: ‘No one has ever fought a war like this before;’ Military’s conduct is qualitatively different, keeping within international law”

Jerusalem Post, 26 Dec 2023 pg 4.

Pray and Sow Seeds into our work.

26 Dec 2023, Samaria: While Israel has not taken responsibility for the airstrike that killed Iranian Sayyed Reza Mousavi near Damascus, Syria, still, Iran threatened Israel of payback, as is customary:

Mousavi was a senior military commander in Iran’s “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” (IRGC).

Wonder what he was doing in Syria, anyway?

Jerusalem Post, 26 Dec 2023 pg 2.

Pray and Finance our work.

25 Dec 2023, Samaria:  In the 1980’s, Bethlehem’s population was still over 90% Arab Christians under Israeli government rule, and all races and religions were allowed in Bethlehem since Israel is a law-abiding open nation with freedom of religion. Since the Oslo Agreement in 1994 which resulted in the creation of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli government handed Bethlehem over to the PA which had just been resurrected from the remains of the Palestinian Liberation Organization which had been exiled in Tunis–a safe distance from Jews.

After that handover, Jews were not permitted entrance; Muslims from the Israeli city of Haifa flocked to Bethlehem in a hostile takeover of Christian Arab homes and businesses – an ethnic cleansing. Arab Christians fled to other parts of the world.  Today, Bethlehem’s population is less than 20% Christian and over 80% Muslim, and Jews are still not allowed.

Against this backdrop of recent history, we see that today, in “solidarity with Gaza,” Bethlehem has cancelled Christmas, along with Syria and other places in the region.

Pray and Donate to keep our work going.

22 Dec 2023, Samaria:  Israel observes the laws of “just war” established by the Christian Saint Augustine and by the Geneva Convention.

And yet, that’s not good enough for Catholicism.

In a Page 2 article in Jerusalem Post, the Chief Rabbi of South Africa cited a Wall Street Journal opinion piece which accused Pope Francis of “primitive pacifism:”

Just as Pope Pius XII made a “deal with the devil,” an agreement with Hitler to kill as many Jews as possible, today’s Francis doubles down on the organization’s Replacement Theology to once again take a stand against Jews.

Pray and Support our work.

22 Dec 2023, Samaria:  Egypt maintains its Border Wall against Gaza at all costs. Israel and the USA asked for a temporary spot in the Sinai for civilians from Gaza to shelter away from the battle zone. What’s a better humanitarian solution than that? Put the refugees on floating rafts in the Mediterranean? Put them in Israel? The Sinai peninsula is still far from any Egyptian assets. There would be no danger to Egyptian infrastructure nor citizens. But no. Egypt cares nothing about their Arab brothers, the human lives in Gaza.

Apparently, Israel asked the USA to exert pressure on Egypt, a US ally.  Either the Biden Administration was unwilling, or ineffective in exerting any pressure. 

Who pays the price for this failure? Israel pays. The more that Gazan civilians suffer, the more the world can blame Israel for something.  Israel gets an outsized amount of blame for civilian casualties in Gaza, despite Hamas, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and the USA who all refuse to lift a finger to provide shelter to the Gazans.  Pray that the world exerts fair pressure on other parties.

Support our work and Pray for us in this difficult region.

19 Dec 2023, Samaria:  US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin came to Israel to meet with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.  The two are pictured below in thei joint press conference on Dec 18 in Tel Aviv.

Gallant: Hard to avoid civilian casualties in an ‘incredibly complex battle space’ and that civilian casualties are hard to avoid.

Each day one hostage is featured on the cover of the Jerusalem post, on the top left corner.  Today, day 74 of the war, we see Eden Yerushalmi, age 24.  Eden’s surname, Yerushalmi, means “Jerusalemite;” her family has been known for innumerable generations as being from Jerusalem.  Obviously her first name is the Garden of Eden (pronounced “AY-den”.