This is an informative blog. Although I am rejoicing that Hamas has released more hostages, I notice most of those around me never speak of the others, the Palestinians. Looking into everything that has happened since October 7th is a lot to digest.
Lately, I have been waking up at 3 a.m. grieving over people I’ve never met—children whose stories haunt me as I go about my day. Not everyone will relate to this message.
A supposed discourse between the great Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the prophet Elijah. The rabbi asks, “When will the Messiah come?” And “By what sign may I recognize him?” Elijah tells the rabbi to go to the gate of the city, where he will find the Messiah sitting among the poor lepers.” (Sanhedrin 98a)
A father with no way to warm a heating blanket so his twin babies do not freeze to death? Checkpoint after checkpoint and roads to walk to plug in a blanket at a hospital for his babies who are malnourished. Barely breathing. A blanket that will stay warm for only 3 hours, and then hypothermia can set in. Our Messiah would not turn away from the suffering.
Later, both babies died. The video below is worth viewing.
Does it matter if the baby is Jewish or Greek? Male or female? Palestinian? Russian or Ukrainian? For God so loved the world…
“Palestinians in Gaza who are under 30 years old have never seen a mountain in their lives. A mountain.” Why? Because they have never been allowed to leave Gaza…Does that sound familiar? To name all the things Palestinians have not been allowed to do is enough to make all of us weep.
“A young cancer patient friend in Gaza gets permission to go to Jerusalem for treatment. Her friends tell her how jealous they are that she has cancer because she gets to see what’s outside the Gaza ghetto. Her brother has never seen a mountain.” X
Most of Gaza is rubble now, and children are starving to death. Children, who some will say, “They will just grow up to hate the Jews.” They are just Philistines. They are animals (false). Yes, this is the mantra we’ve been taught. We are all humans.
We can see in Genesis 36 that Amalek is a son of Esau. His mother is Timna.
This is not the first Amalek. Way before, In Genesis 14:7 a people called Amalekites are mentioned. “Then they came again to En-mishpat (this is Kadesh), and they subdued all the territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who live in Hazazon-tamar.” So, they are mentioned during the war of the kings.
The descendants of Esau are referred to as Edom and Edomites, and they form the people of Seir. Even Esau’s name in Hebrew includes Sier.
Saul did not wipe out the Amalekites, but David pretty much did, and we learn in I Chronicles they are eradicated.
I’m struggling with labeling people today as animals or evil or even as Amalekites or having a spirit like them. Hatred and evil are on all sides.
The Babylonian Talmud noted that the sons of Haman, who was descended from Amalek (16), studied Torah in the town of Bnai Brak (b. Gittin 57b) (17).
So this would be Esau’s descendants since the Amalekites were destroyed.
Following Zionism and the Zionist perspective is about usurping people and land. All these political entanglements will only lead to death. We are to be a people of life. All life. “Kill and eat Peter,” life. what has been made of Zionism, usurping Zion, the mount, power place literally, where God dwells..which is in us) only lead to death.”
While watching hungry children holding dirty buckets and bowls wailing for a bowl of soup today, the Palestinians looked more like the Warsaw Ghetto’s than anything I’ve seen. Fear.
Is there land just a place for a business person to build Trump Towers or resorts? Is this peace, peace, when there is no Peace? Oh, friends, may Abba open our eyes to see the Palestinians with Yeshua’s eyes.
Dogs eat the crumbs under His table! And it was the disciples who thought the woman crying out for her daughter was a dog, not our King! He is the one who will not judge by what his ears hear or eyes see, but with perfect judgment, He will judge with righteousness.
Most of the people in “the land” are a mixed-up multitude.
Israel today is a modern nation-state, not a holy nation. We are Israel. We who are humble servants. We who cry out for mercy, as Isaiah cried out,
Yeshua is the One High and lifted up. May we bow before Him and His Words.
One eyewitness missionary said that the area filled with thousands of Palestinian orphans in makeshift tents hosts the highest number of prosthetics. The limbless Palestinian children running barefoot, thin, hollowed-eyed, and hungry look like something from the apocalypse.
I’m not trying to take away from the atrocities that have happened to the Jewish children and those murdered and kidnapped. It’s horrific. But When I can’t sleep, and I wake up in the middle of the night grieved by the faces and stories of people laying bloody in the streets, those we keep stepping over or crossing the street ignoring or worse, calling philistines falsely, it grieves me that we justify who we step over, turn away from, and deem evil— humanity. How will they know our Messiah or our identity? Is it not by our love?
“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”
Elie Wiesel,
The Good Samaritans, the mixed breeds, the ones that were hated and despised by God’s people, are used time and again in every parable by THE MASTER, our REDEEMER, to teach us something.
Why do we often only read and listen to the same sources? We miss much of the view if we only climb half the mountain. If our teachers all mimic themselves, we only see one side of the mountain. Can we have genuine compassion for all the Seed of Abraham and humanity? As you pray for Israel, will you pray for the Palestinians? Can we love the world? Or are some of them unworthy of love? Or land? Or a president or military or basic human needs and rights? Like a toilet, food, and water—Or the ability to see a mountain?
Last year, my husband gathered to pray with a local assembly for the hostages. Leaders from many churches in the community gathered to pray when the war began. My husband accompanied a pastor from a local congregation called The Seed of Abraham. He listened to pastors speak and pray, and then a rabbi stood up and asked if everyone could join him in praying for Palestine first. We must stop thinking that brother is against brother. That the Israelis all hate the Palestinians or that the Palestinians all hate the Israelis. Or that one people group is inhumane, without compassion, empathy, or pain. That has already been done time and time again throughout history.
“The crossing in southern Gaza is the only border point between Gaza and Egypt and was the only way into and out of the enclave that Israel didn’t control until Israeli troops took control of it in May 2024 after their military campaign reached Gaza’s southern edge.
The crossing reopened Saturday under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, giving some Palestinians in need of medical support the chance to leave. The crossing is being monitored by a European Union mission, with Israeli troops ceding control.”
“On Friday, the World Health Organization said an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 people still require medical evacuation from Gaza. It is the first time since last May that the injured have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Hopefully, many of those suffering can get help.”
Sometimes Fox News gets it wrong. . .
“Trey Yingst, chief foreign correspondent for Fox News based in Jerusalem, reported from Israel misinformation about the Palestinian prisoners released as part of the ceasefire agreement.
He said, “The prisoners that are being released today from Israeli prisons are convicted murderers and people who planned suicide bombings.”
In reality, the released prisoners also held 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Other news sources said those freed were either convicted of a “relatively minor offense,” or under administrative detention, that is, held without charge or trial. Not one prisoner had been convicted of murder or planned any bombings.
A number of the prisoners released had been arrested for simply writing a social media post decrying Israel’s violence in Gaza, over 47,000 people, most of them women and children.
(It’s important to be aware that “arrested” actually means they were forcibly abducted by soldiers from an occupying foreign military.)” News Source.
What if we investigated an opposite view of what we’ve been taught all our lives? What if things are not black and white? What if there are other people who live in the land and ministers who have seen things and have experienced things we’ve never read or heard about because we think we already hold all truth?
One prisoner released after almost 10 years away from his family was Mohammad al-Halabi, the former head of a World Vision Australian aid program in Gaza, who was finally set free from an Israeli prison on Saturday.
Mr al-Halabi was convicted in 2022 of funneling money from the program to Hamas. However, he maintained his innocence, and World Vision and the Australian government investigations found no money was missing. A friend stated that he always attended church with her in Jerusalem.
Sadly, what happens when we have fears and distrust people, especially different people groups? It is no different from having a fear of not having enough food, and a child begins to hide food. Or being rejected or abandoned to the point that you fear everyone will leave you. People who were tortured and starved in concentration camps had fears afterward. Fear is ruling the world. We need the Prince of Peace.
Today, people have come back home to nothingness. Their homes flattened. No toilets, no water, no electricity. Living in tents if fortunate. With nothing. As they are interviewed, they express that they wished they would have died in the bombings. No child should wish death. We cry out for life, and many make great stands to stop abortion, but these children are precious to our Messiah and our Father. Human life deserves to be seen as human and loved. The greatest GIFT is LOVE, and I fail at it often. There are people in my past that I had to forgive every day. Why daily? Because the other parties refuse to participate in a conversation, healing, closure, or an olive branch. Do we say” peace when there is no peace.”
Humanity is a word we should ponder. All human life is precious to the One who created All. The One who heard Ishmael crying. The One who had Rahab, Ruth, and Tamar in His lineage.
Today, the rocks are crying out. Could we be witnessing the earthquake mentioned by the prophets? The earth and its people are quacking, no doubt.
Blessings,
Tekoa Manning