As I watched the barbaric, evil GoPro videos Hamas released on October 7, 2023, I told my husband that Israel’s response needed to be swift and deadly. Watching people dance and throw rocks at terrified Israeli hostages being paraded through Gaza’s streets is something I will never forget.
If you missed Part 1 of this series, which looks at Israel’s unique approach to life, you can catch up here.
Thankfully, Israel didn’t do what I desired. I knew it had the capability to bomb Gaza beyond recognition. But that’s not how Israel conducts war. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) follow a code of ethics stating soldiers cannot use force to harm innocent civilians or unarmed prisoners. Contrarily, Hamas terrorists mingle among Gazan civilians, using them as human shields.
Israel’s Difficult Dilemma
Israel has a highly complex situation on its hands. Hamas has built more than 220 miles of tunnels under Gaza. On October 7, these terrorists took Israel’s children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers hostage into those tunnels. Hamas’s provocation to war that day certainly would justify a dramatic response from Israel.
Yet, Israel’s war protocol would seem almost too humane to believe except that the United Nations (UN) has confirmed the nation’s virtuous tactics. And if you’re familiar with the UN, you know it is not Israel’s friend, and it never shows the Jewish nation much sympathy nor any favoritism. Despite Israel’s upright, democratic actions, the UN has charged the Jewish state with more violations than any other country in the world.
Also confirmed by the UN, Hamas intentionally builds its tunnel entrances under its own schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings.
But the UN acknowledges that before Israel attacks an area or building, the IDF texts, calls, drops notes, and sends drones that repeat in Arabic a message to evacuate the area. Israel desires to kill terrorists and to allow civilians to flee. The nation strategically destroys buildings to gain access to terrorist tunnel systems to search for hostages, then destroy Hamas’s heartline by which terrorists move about Gaza undetected. Also confirmed by the UN, Hamas intentionally builds its tunnel entrances under its own schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings. No other group so blatantly uses its own people to protect its military and not the opposite.
War is tragic. Civilians die when war breaks out in their land. The true number of casualties coming out of Gaza has changed throughout the war. Hamas continues to change its death tolls with no differentiation between combatant and civilian deaths. The IDF estimates it has killed around 13,000 Hamas terrorists, making the death ratio of Hamas terrorists to civilians roughly 1:1.5. The UN estimates that a typical death ratio of combatants to civilians in modern, urban warfare worldwide is 1:9. Israel’s actions are a far cry from the accusations of genocide spewed against it.
Iran’s Reach
It is hard to ignore Iran’s fingerprints throughout the war in Gaza and now the war in Lebanon. Soon after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran established Hezbollah in Lebanon. Much like Hamas did in Gaza, Hezbollah infiltrated Lebanon’s society, offering help to communities with affordable housing, healthcare, and education in exchange for loyalty. Now, more than 40 years later, parts of Lebanon are unrecognizable apart from Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy.
Hamas, unlike Hezbollah, is not Iran’s proxy but instead more of a partner, bound together with the shared mission of destroying Israel and the Jewish people. It has accepted millions of dollars from Iran to aid in their common genocidal goal. Iran lurks behind both Hamas and Hezbollah’s fronts against Israel.
Focusing on Hope
Why is everyone set on destroying Israel today? As one friend recently told me, “When I put Israel in its rightful place in God’s Word, everything else falls into place.” Israel and the Jewish people have a purpose today and in the future, according to God’s Word. And while those who hate God hate His Chosen People and the Jewish nation, God’s plan—from Genesis to Revelation—will not be thwarted.
Israel and the Jewish people have a purpose today and in the future, according to God’s Word.
Our Jewish and Israeli friends feel alone. Christians need to stand for truth now. This war is not as complicated as some people pretend. Israel has a right to its homeland, where the Jewish people have lived for millennia. It also has the right to defend its land. To date, Hezbollah has fired more than 15,000 rockets, missiles, and bombs into Israel since October 8, 2023. Hamas promised that October 7 was only the beginning. These terrorists trained for the invasion for years.
So what should a country do? It must take precautions to never allow such a massacre to happen again. Israel could have carried out the entire operation by air and finished it by now. Instead, it sent its sons and daughters in by land to minimize civilian casualties and bring back its hostages.
The words of Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel (1969–1974), still ring true: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Please pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).
Resources to learn more about Israel from The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry:
It Is No Dream by Elwood McQuaid
Five Facts You Should Know About Israel by Renald Showers
Israel Always by Chris Katulka
Israel: Who’s Land Is It Anyway? by Jennifer Miles
Israel My Glory May/June 2024
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Comments 1
Your colleague, author Ty Perry, who taught one of the FOI on-line classes that I attended, indicated that there is another holocaust prophesied to occur:
“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” (Zechariah 13:8-9)
I agree with his teaching. So how can it be said that a massacre will not happen again?
But I agree with you that Israel could have wiped out the inhabitants of Gaza. Where I live in Maryland, a pastor of Kettering Baptist Church preached that because there are Palestinian Christians in Gaza, God has not allowed Israel to completely destroy the enemy there. I believe that he is right. The Christians should have left a long time ago, for their own safety and protection.