Since December, evangelical Christians have begun returning to Israel in droves after avoiding the Holy Land in the two months immediately following the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel. Those who had been before found a far more sombre nation still coming to terms with the horror of those attacks.
“In the past two months we’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds, of Christian groups coming to Israel,” said Josh Reinstein, director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, which encourages support for Israel among politicians and faith leaders abroad. Evangelical Christians have also donated tens of millions of dollars to Israel’s first responders and non-governmental organisations that assist war victims.
“Christians, and not only in America, are supporting Israel like never before,” Mr. Reinstein told Religion News Service (RNS), pointing to pro-Israel rallies sponsored by Christians in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Some of the Christians who have been staying in hotels that are also hosting dozens of evacuee families from near Gaza, were given a rare insight into how they are coping with their loss and displacement. California ministry leader and great-grandmother Lisa Powell said: “That really pulled on my heart. Entire families are staying in one hotel room. They are in a state of trauma, but they are strong, strengthened by being together as a community. Under any other circumstances they would be in a refugee camp, but the Israeli government is assisting them.”
Nick Hansen, the co-pastor of a Pentecostal church in Denmark, who was in Israel on October 7 to celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles observed: “There is now a somberness, a silence, a void without joy and without peace. Everyone seems to be on high alert, on guard for the next attack. Being here, you understand the sheer evil of the Hamas attacks. It was a celebration of death, a brutality that doesn’t exist even in nature.”
US pastor Ken Soltys told RNS how he was deeply affected by his encounters with the families of Israeli hostages. One mother described the kidnapping of her son Omer Shem-Tov who has asthma and coeliac disease: “Omer is our youngest. We call him our sunshine. He’s a good boy who went to a festival to dance. I hope you will go home and tell your community our story. I hope this nightmare will end and I will hug my sunshine.”
Nothing prepared regular Israel visitor and retired American Anglican priest and former professor of theology Gerard McDermott for the scene at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where Hamas gunmen entered a family home and tortured the residents before kidnapping them. “You see the blood, the bullet holes, the baby’s toys. What we saw in living colour was the hatred that Satan himself has for the Jewish people. Satan hates the Jews because he knows God loves them. Satan is living in and inspiring Hamas,” Dr. McDermott declared.
