Gerald McDermott, an American Anglican priest and retired professor of theology, had visited Israel 22 times before his most up-to-date trip. The writer of two books on Christian Zionism and the meaning of Israel to Christianity, he was invited to affix a mission in late January to indicate solidarity with the Israeli people within the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
“I’d seen a lot of the Oct. 7 videos,” McDermott said, referring to footage of the atrocities committed by Hamas at several kibbutzim and a dance party near Israel’s border with Gaza on that warm autumn day. The attack left 1,200 people in Israel dead and 240 held hostage in Gaza.
But nothing prepared McDermott, he said, for encountering the scene at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where Hamas entered the house of the Bibas family and tortured them before kidnapping them.
“You see all of the blood on the partitions, the bullet holes, the infant’s toys,” McDermott said the day after he and dozens of other pastors from all over the world visited. “What we saw in living color was the hatred that Satan himself has for the Jewish people. Satan hates the Jews because he knows God loves them. Satan resides in and provoking Hamas,” McDermott asserted.
The mission, organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, included a visit to Sderot, a Gaza border city that has sustained quite a few rocket attacks by Hamas prior to now 20 years. The group also went to northern Israel, from where tens of 1000’s of Israeli residents have been displaced by missiles launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The participants, who hail from 18 countries, heard eyewitness testimony from massacre victims and a few of the relatives of the 136 Israelis still being held captive.
The number of tourists to Israel has decreased dramatically since its war with Hamas began. Airlines have reduced the variety of fights, and the hotels have been filled with evacuees. But in December, groups of evangelical Christians began to reach, in line with those that have organized the trips.
“In the past two months we have seen dozens, if not a whole lot, of Christian groups coming to Israel,” said Josh Reinstein, director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, a not-for-profit organization that encourages support for Israel amongst politicians and faith leaders abroad.
Since Oct. 7, evangelical Christians have donated tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Israel’s first responders and nongovernmental organizations that assist war victims.
“Christians, and never only in America, are supporting Israel like never before,” Reinstein said, pointing to pro-Israel rallies sponsored by Christians in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. In the U.S. especially, evangelical Christians actively lobby lawmakers to support Israel. Prominent American evangelicals made their voices heard loudly at November’s March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington.
Pastor Lisa Powell, the founding father of Lisa Powell Ministries International in Corona, California, said she got here to Israel in January on her thirty eighth visit “to actually see what I could do for the people here and pray about how we generally is a blessing in a more tangible way.”
Because the group stayed in a Jerusalem hotel that’s hosting dozens of evacuee families from Sderot, Powell had the chance to sit down with them and study how they’re coping with loss and displacement.
“That really pulled on my heart,” Powell said. “I’m a grandmother of 18 and likewise a great-grandmother. Entire families are staying in a single hotel room. They are in a state of trauma, but they’re strong, strengthened by being together as a community. Under another circumstances they’d be in a refugee camp, however the Israeli government is assisting them.”
Given the broad support for Gaza’s Palestinians amongst many young people, Powell hopes to bring a delegation of Christian college students to Israel in order that they can experience the country for themselves. “They only know what they see within the media and on TikTok, which is targeting the younger generation to disillusion them and to show them against Israel,” the religion leader said.
Nick Hansen, the co-pastor of a Pentecostal church in Denmark, was in Israel on Oct. 7 to rejoice the Feast of the Tabernacles. While the shock of that day has subsided, he said, “there may be now a somberness, a silence, a void without joy and without peace,” in Israel. “Everyone appears to be on high alert, on guard for the subsequent attack.”
Hansen said he felt compelled to return on the mission with the opposite pastors to see the carnage for himself. “Sitting in Europe and watching the news, we ponder whether Israel goes too far. Being here, you understand the sheer evil of Oct. 7. It was a celebration of death, a brutality that does not exist even in nature,” he said.
Pastor Ken Soltys, the founding father of Ken Soltys Ministries in Hayesville, North Carolina, said he was deeply affected by the pastors’ encounters with the families of Israeli hostages in a Jerusalem hotel. Shelly Shem-Tov described the kidnapping of her son Omer Shem-Tov, explaining that he has asthma and celiac disease.
“Omer is our youngest. We call him our sunshine. He’s a very good boy who went to a festival to bounce,” the mother told the pastors. “I hope you’ll go home and tell your community our story. I hope this nightmare will end and I’ll hug my sunshine.”
© Religion News Service
