Weekly Update: Praying With Increased Power

In these Weekly Updates we wish to inform you about some of the developments that do not reach the headlines of the mainstream media. The purpose is that we may have better understanding, in order that we may pray with increased power into the heavenly realms (Ephesians 3:10).

This week’s highlights:

• According to the IDF, Hamas is holding 224 hostages, of which four have been released
• Hamas is deliberately using human shields and burying its military operations in civilian targets. The IDF has issued a graphic overlay of a satellite image of Shifa Hospital, showing what it says are Hamas command centers hidden underneath the hospital
• So far, about 200,000 Israelis have been displaced, about 600,000 Palestinians have been displaced
• Iran was behind the Hamas massacres
• The conflict could quickly spread in the north (Lebanon) and east (Syria)
• Rockets have been fired from Yemen
• Israel has commenced its land operation in Gaza
• An alarming level of hatred of Israel and the Jewish people is being displayed in the protests held in many Western cities and university campuses.
• UN Secretary-General Gueterres asserted that Israel’s occupation is the cause of the Hamas attacks, – a remark that has caused international outcry.

At this time, it is important that we lift this complex situation up to the Lord, confident that He is in control, and that He is moving all things towards His purposes. 

We are also reminded that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12).

Specifically, let us pray that –

• Israel’s leaders will have great wisdom in responding, achieving great precision in their self-defence and minimizing civilian loss
• Every single one of the hostages held by Hamas will be released unharmed and without conditions
• all innocent lives will be spared
• the leaders of all surrounding nations will not attack Israel
• the leaders of Iran, Hamas and all other Islamist groups will be miraculously delivered of their genocidal hatred of the Jewish people
• the people of Israel – Jews, Arabs and all others – will be united in seeking the Lord of Hosts as their savior and redeemer
• Satan will be defeated, and the Lord Himself will intervene.

The Editorial Team – Israel & Christians Today

Israel: Hamas’s main operations base is under Shifa Hospital in Gaza City
The IDF issues a graphic overlay of a satellite image of Shifa Hospital, showing what it says are Hamas command centers hidden underneath the hospital.
> Read more..

Iran is behind this conflict
Jonathan Spyer: “But what erupted out of the Gaza Strip on October 7, spreading massacre and horror has nothing to do with the ‘occupation’, the ‘two state solution’ and all the tired terminology of that dispute. It represents the combination of two powerful and related forces. … Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, to give it its full name, is the local representative of a series of political/military movements stretching along the contiguous space from Egypt up to Iraq, which for better or worse appear to be able to mobilize the support of a significant mass of their respective populations in the service of political violence…. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the element which provides Hamas’s missile array, instructs its cadres in the home grown building of rockets, and which almost certainly provided the space and the concealment needed for Hamas to train and prepare for October 7.  For what purpose?  Iran is committed to a long war strategy against Israel, which is intended to end with the Jewish state’s demise and collapse.”
> Read more..

The goal of Hamas is to annihilate Israel
Mosab Hassan Yousef: “Hamas opened the gates of hell on the Palestinian people … The blood of Palestinians is on the hands of Hamas and Hamas only.”

Who Says Hamas Does Not Represent The Palestinians?
Bassam Tawil: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Abbas’s silence is a rambunctious approval of the cold-blooded massacre of hundreds upon hundreds of Israelis. Let there be no mistake about it: both Hamas and Abbas represent a majority of Palestinians whose goal is to murder Jews and destroy Israel.
> Read more..

Iran Behind Hamas’ planned genocide
Majid Rafizadeh: “The Biden administration and the European Union have pursued this dangerous policy — not just of appeasement, but also of financing terrorists; of supporting a regime that chants “Death to America,” “Death to Israel”; that plots to push the US out of the Middle East; that is committed to uprooting and replacing Israel; that has zealously been targeting American citizens and American assets, and that is one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, as well as a leading violator of human rights. It is high time to put Iran’s regime out of business.”
> Read more..

The UN is rationalizing the slaughter of Jews
Jonathan Tobin: “Comments by Secretary-General António Guterres are the latest instance of how the world body sanctions antisemitism and lends legitimacy to a Palestinian victimhood narrative that has no basis in truth.”
> Read more…

The aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel has exposed the West’s moral collapse
Douglas Murray: “The protests we are seeing have nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with problems here at home.”
> Read more..

What is Hamas?
Mark Durie: “Hamas is completely opposed to a two-state solution. Every attack on Israel is designed to prevent this happening.”
> Read more..

A War Against the Jews
Michael Oren: “This war is not simply between Hamas terrorists and Israelis. It is a war against the Jews.”
> Read more..

PA: This is holy war, we’re carrying out “Jihad,” PA Chairman is “commander of the Jihad fighters”
PMW: “Recent statements by PA Chairman Abbas’ advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, in response to Hamas’ terror war on Israel shows – what Palestinian Media Watch has documented for years – that the PA, as well as Hamas, sees the conflict with Israel as a religious war – a holy war – Jihad for Israel’s destruction.”
> Read more..

An Israeli Strategy for a Post-Hamas Gaza
Prof. Jonathan Rynhold and Dr. Toby Greene: “Israelis have united around the goal of toppling the Hamas regime, but little has been said about what would come after. This issue is critical to Israel’s security and must be addressed.”
> Read more..

Support for Hamas abounds on US campuses
JNS: “A coalition of 34 Harvard student organizations signed a letter “hold[ing] the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” adding that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame,” Reuters reported. The signatories included Palestinian support groups and the Harvard Jews for Liberation.”
> Read more..