Week of Inside Israel – November 12, 2024

Less than half a mile from the Amsterdam house where Anne Frank wrote her diary before her family was betrayed to the Nazis, thousands of Israelis faced a modern-day pogrom last Thursday. Assailants carrying Palestinian flags attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans before and after the soccer match.

Maccabi fan Tomer said he and other fans feared for their lives. He said the assailants organized themselves “like a terror group” and “waited for the fans of Maccabi everywhere . . . with clubs and knives. They had their faces covered, carried Palestinian flags [and] didn’t distinguish between women, child, men or the elderly. They attacked everyone they saw as Israeli.”

Ami Shuman, a photographer for the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, came to the soccer match with his son. Because of the violence, they got trapped at Dam Square, the main square in Amsterdam, with many other fans. He said, “While we were in Dam Square, closed in by the police, some fans said, ‘You can take a taxi,’ but someone replied, ‘No way, my friend got into a taxi, and the driver took him to a side street so they could beat him up.’ The taxi drivers physically participated in these lynchings, really.”

In an ironic twist, this modern-day pogrom happened just two days before the 86th memorial of the horrific Kristallnacht pogroms in Germany when mobs broke glass windows in thousands of Jewish neighborhoods, shops, and synagogues.

Another fan named Dan reported, “I saw a car-ramming, kicking on the ground, fans being beaten up. They also tried to knock me down. They punched me in the ear, and when they saw they couldn’t knock me down, I ran away. There were fans trapped in shops, some went into homes to seek rescue and help. It was a pogrom. If there had been internet in ’38, that’s what Kristallnacht would have looked like.”

Please pray for mental, physical, and spiritual healing for the Israelis who were attacked during this pogrom. Pray also against the satanic antisemitism surging globally.

Nati Ganon, a father of three children whom Hamas terrorists critically injured while murdering his wife on October 7 at the Nova Music Festival, was discharged from the hospital last Tuesday. He had spent over a year being treated by the staff at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

Ganon said, “I knew my leg was in catastrophic shape, but I decided that rehabilitation was better than amputation no matter how long it would take, even though amputation was an option. The doctors fought to save my leg. Now I can already walk for almost 10 minutes without a cane.”

During the rehabilitation process, Ganon had two mental breakdowns. His body and mind had been through so much he began counting each small success as part of the miracles he experienced this year. “The staff has a big heart. What I’ve been through isn’t something ordinary, nor is it something out of a movie. It’s something that the brain can’t process; over time, you piece together the puzzle and understand the details.”

“My journey doesn’t end here,” he added. “My biggest triumph will first and foremost be to go home and raise my children and my dream is to return to the profession I love—cutting hair.”

Please pray for Nati and his three children to find new joy together, for continued physical improvements and strength, and for spiritual triumph for the Ganon family through Messiah Yeshua.

On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released alarming footage, dated from 2018 to 2020, of Hamas operatives torturing detainees and holding them in physically challenging conditions. The IDF released only 46 minutes out of thousands of hours of closed-circuit-TV video which they seized during a raid earlier this year. It took months to go through, and viewer discretion is advised for the portions they allowed to be released.

One video clip shows a man crying out in pain. Another shows a Hamas operative leisurely reclining in a chair while his civilian prisoner is handcuffed and hanging chained from the ceiling next to him. A third clip shows a man brutally tied up with a red sack covering his head. One of the guards later strangles the man.

The IDF stated, “The materials uncovered, expose Hamas’s brutal methods for interrogating civilians, violating human rights, and systematically oppressing residents suspected of opposing the organization’s rule.”

A former Israeli intelligence officer also reported that Hamas holds thousands of Gazan civilians against their will and tortures them. “Some are electrocuted on electricity pylons or dragged on a chain from a vehicle until they die,” he said.

Hamas detained and tortured Hamza Howidy for speaking against the regime. “I was lucky because my family paid a price for me.” he said. He and his family fled Gaza for Europe last year, where he now tells his story. “People outside of Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters when they are killing innocent Palestinians for nothing. Hamas is holding the people of Gaza hostage.”

Please pray for prisoners and hostages Hamas holds captive, for the people of Gaza to soon be free from terrorist rule, for the inhumane ideology of Hamas to crumble and fall by the power of Jesus, and for the gospel of the Prince of Peace to invade Gaza and overthrow all hate with God’s perfect love.

Chosen People Ministries—Israel Gives Gifts of Light and Life to Israeli Children

In recent months, the situation in northern Israel has become very complicated. Haifa and its surroundings are under constant shelling. People try to stay close to shelters, schools close, and kids stay home.

Because of these conditions, our Israel staff came up with the idea to provide special blessings for the children from this area. We bought coloring books, craft materials, games, and sweets, and made 300 gifts for kids. Together with the local believing community “Light of Life” where one of the leaders is our employee, we posted announcements on social networks and invited not-yet-believing families to come and receive a gift for their children. We also found out that somebody in the Orthodox Jewish media published about it saying that the gifts would be provided by “Messianic Jews,” so even though their message was intended to be negative, it turned out to be great advertising for us!

Then two weeks ago, for two days, hundreds of people came to the congregation. There were so many people we had to give one gift per family instead of one per child! But the biggest surprise was that 172 people left their contact information expressing their desire for their family to participate in future events held by the congregation! Praise the Lord!

Pray for the 300 families who received our gifts, no matter their religious (or non-religious) background. Pray as the leaders of “Light of Life” follow up with the 172 parents who asked for future contact and involvement. Pray for us as we help Haifa and other communities under bombardment. May the light of Jesus shine brighter into their lives every day!

Israel Meets the Messiah

These days our staff is doing a lot of home visits to Holocaust survivors, and this is a very blessed ministry. We sit and listen to them, pray for them, and, of course, help them. We have distributed dozens of walkers and other medical equipment for the last few months. Every time, it is a blessing to see the happy faces of the receivers.

One of these Holocaust survivors we met a while back is named Israel, and he is ninety-six years old. He needed a walker, so we gave him one and started to visit him regularly. Then, two weeks ago, he prayed and received Jesus! Halleluiah!

Pray for Israel to grow in his faith and understanding of the Scriptures. Pray for us as we continue to minister to him and to the several hundred other Holocaust survivors we help. Pray for the Lord to draw them unto Him before their earthly lives come to an end.

Young Israeli Moms Receive Mercies from Our Staff

This summer, we added a new program to our women’s ministry events: Monthly Moms & Tots. These meetups are midweek and a casual time for believing moms of little ones to gather at our ministry center in Ramat Gan in a safe space. We have a child-friendly facility and a large bomb shelter right next door. The moms all bring a dish to contribute, and we love to make hot beverages for each mom—a cappuccino, tea, or hot chocolate with regular or oat milk. The moms are always so grateful for this special treatment. We eat, play with the kids, read stories, put on worship music and dance around with the toddlers, present a short devotion or word of encouragement from the Scriptures, and pray for each other.

Just last week we had our weekly meeting, and—amidst conversations of how to redirect toddlers from unwanted or unacceptable behaviors, and discussions on weaning, walking, and napping—one young mom got a call from her husband. He was only moments away from entering Lebanon and called to speak with his wife. We choked up and prayed for him. We also all encouraged her about the great job she is doing taking care of her kids and herself and getting out and being sociable. For two months, with him in the war, she has been managing her household alone, with two very small children. She told us she has been experiencing the mercy of God in ways she had never experienced before. What a perfect tie-in to the very Scripture that our leader had planned to present that morning with the group: “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23). She read these verses and then we prayed together for this sweet woman of God, her husband, his unit, and her children. Afterwards, our leader sent her a message with the verses, and she wrote back “Thank you” for the message, saying it was a wonderful reminder and she has been reciting those verses every day since!

Pray for this young mom and her small children, for her husband in Lebanon, and for so many thousands of other moms who are temporarily “single parents” while their husbands are in the war. Pray for the mothers to rely on the Lord and sense His presence, strength, and provision. Pray for the children to have supernatural relief from the stress and to get along well with their moms and siblings. Pray for safety, wisdom, and strength for dads and all parents who are fighting for the right of Israel to exist within her own borders free from attack. And pray for our staff as we minster to these families.