Hamas Attacks Israel, Killing Hundreds and Igniting Major War
The Story: On Saturday October 7, Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, launched a full-scale assault on the nation of Israel resulting in the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. The assault began with a bombardment by thousands of missiles in a coordinated attack intended to breach Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system and distract Israeli forces from other strategic security locations. Immediately after the launch, armed terrorists breached the border wall in a combined land, air, and sea attack coordinated to overload Israeli defenses.
Over 2,000 heavily-armed Hamas terrorists overwhelmed IDF forces and indiscriminately slaughtered over 1,200 Israeli citizens, including babies, pregnant mothers, and entire families. Nearly all of Kfar Aza, the hardest-hit kibbutzim, was murdered.
Terrorists attacked a music festival using paragliders, opening fire indiscriminately on attendees, and hunting down those who tried to escape. Over 250 attendees were massacred, most of whom were shot in the back as they ran away, or were murdered in their cars as the terrorists unloaded sheets of bullets into vehicles filled with young Israelis.
Hamas has also captured an estimated 150 Israelis, many of whom are still being held captive inside Gaza and some of whom have been paraded through the streets of Gaza to the sound of cheering crowds.
Israel has responded by declaring war on Hamas and launching counter-attacks into the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
In an address to the people of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel would destroy Hamas and called on residents of the Gaza Strip to evacuate ahead of an Israeli ground offensive.
Israel has attempted to warn residents of Gaza to evacuate from Hamas-controlled areas using text blasts at other communication methods. Hamas, however, has told their citizens to stay in place, even blockading certain neighbourhoods in order to ensure citizens are trapped inside.
The Significance: Hamas’ decision to attack Israel and murder its citizens must be condemned. There is simply no justification for a murderous attack that involved mass-raping women, beheading babies, burning civilians alive, and kidnapping Holocaust survivers as hostages to parade through the streets. Hamas has assaulted God’s human image bearers. To attack them with such barbaric savagery was to poke Him in the eye.
The goal of any good government is to protect the citizens within its borders. When a nation is attacked without just cause, Christian just war theory has long defended the right of the attacked nation to respond using means of war.
While war is never to be entered lightly, it may sometimes be the necessary obligation of those leaders who have been charged by God with the protection of their people. In this case, Israel is justified in using military force in response to Hamas’ attack.
Some voices have called for Israel to demonstrate restraint in response to this attack on their nation. But Hamas’s founding statement calls for the complete destruction of Israel and of all Jewish people. As a legitimate government with the moral responsibility to defend its citizens, Israel is justified in seeking the destruction of Hamas.
As Christians who understand the value of life, we are rightfully wary of decisive military action. However, Hamas is responsible for thousands of deaths of their own people, uses human shields, and will endanger their own citizens in order to garner international sympathy.
For the sake of both Israel and innocent Palistianians, we should pray that Israel’s counter-attack would successfully end Hamas’s reign of terror.
The Lord is a God who avenges. O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve. How long, Lord, will the wicked, how long will the wicked be jubilant?
Psalm 94:1-3
Canada Responds to Massacre of Israelis
The Story: Adi Vital-Kaploun of Ottawa, Ben Mizrachi of Vancouver, Alexandre Look of Montreal: these are the names of the Canadians known to have been murdered by Hamas terrorists.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has denounced Hamas, stating that it “is a terrorist organization that has brutally murdered innocent civilians,” other leaders have not made such clear condemnations.
Politicians such as Ontario NDP MPP Sarah Jama, Unions and union leaders such as CUPE Ontario President Fred Hanh and York University Student Unions, and educators such as Osgoode law professors Heidi Matthews all blamed Israel for Hamas’ murderous attack. The common thread in these statements is an attempt to justify the violence against Israeli civilians by deriding Israel as a “settler-colonialist state.”
A leaked memo from George Achi, CBC’s Director of Journalistic Standards, instructed producers and reporters to refrain from describing Hamas as “terrorists.” Hamas is on the Canadian government’s official list of terrorist entities.
At pro-Hamas protests around the country, chants of “We are your men, Mohammad Deif!” were widespread. Deif, a Hamas commander, is believed to be the mastermind behind the attacks on Israel. At one protest in Ottawa, Pakistani activist Mahmoud Kahlil told the crowd: “We’re going to be the nightmare here. We’re going to be the nightmare in Gaza.” Kahlil was previously hosted at a 2022 reception on Parliament Hill by MPs Salma Zahid, Omar Alghabra, Elizabeth May, and Niki Ashton.
Hamas supporters in Canada appear to be taking his statement seriously, as three young men were arrested in Toronto for threatening violence against a Jewish school. Police in Toronto and other major cities have set up command centres and increased patrols in traditional Jewish areas.
Countering the dramatic rise in anti-Semitism, dozens of Stand with Israel rallies took place around the country—the largest of which drew over 20,000 supporters in Toronto’s Mel Lastman Square.
The Significance: Never before in the history of Canada has the news of such a horrific tragedy been met by widespread celebrations in the streets, capital buildings, and university halls. It’s hard to imagine how this is the same country that responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks with such grace and compassion that many Americans still speak about it nearly two decades later.
Since that tragedy, the cancer of relativism has spread throughout many of our nation’s institutions, aided by rapid national secularization. In academic and government circles, it has taken the form of critical theory which treats morality as subjective and entirely based on “oppressor vs. oppressed” dynamics. This moral relativism justifies any atrocity so long as the people committing it are part of the “oppressed” class. We can see the horrific results of this belief system in the examples above. Unless our society once again recognizes God Himself as the source of all good, we will not be able to defeat this cancerous ideology.
They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting. They crush your people, Lord; they oppress your inheritance. They slay the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless. They say, “The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.”
Psalm 94: 4-7
United States Mobilizes Warship as International Fallout from Hamas Attack Begins
The Story: In response to Hamas’s attack on innocent Israelis, the United States has sent its largest warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to Israel to maintain a “deterrent posture.”
Elsewhere, Hezbollah—a major terrorist organization funded by Iran—has amassed 150,000 GPS-guided missiles and has made movements on Israel’s border with Lebanon that seem to indicate an intention to join the War. Hamas itself called for a “day of Jihad” that gripped much of the Western world.
In response to the War, Saudi Arabia has ended trilateral talks with Israel and the United States. The talks had been intended to fortify the position of all three nations against Iran, which funds and supports terrorist activities in the region and around the world. Much of Hamas’s funding has come from the Iranian regime.
The Significance: The full geopolitical fallout from Hamas’s attack will only be seen as the War unfolds, but global military escalation is very much on the table. Many observers have speculated that the entire attack was planned and sponsored by Iran in order to destroy the diplomatic strides that Israel had made in normalizing relations with surrounding Arab nations. In that sense, this operation has likely been a “success” for Iran as Israel must now attempt to destroy Hamas, an effort which will severely deteriorate regional stability.
The American Government’s decision to deploy their largest warship as a deterrent indicates that the US Military has reason to be concerned that other actors are prepared to enter the War. Some observers have speculated that Iran is searching for an excuse to directly engage in the conflict and, even if they aren’t, they are likely about to attempt a proxy war through Hezbollah.
If official involvement in the War does expand beyond Israel and Hamas, the negative fallout around the world will likely be drastic. Everything from stock markets to the price of oil will be impacted.
Significantly, we have now entered a geopolitical era similar to the period of time after 9/11. Just as the magnitude of Al-Qaeda’s attack on the United States indicated a new age of terror and changed everyday life in the Western world, so also Hamas’s attack and threat of a global Jihad signals another round of terror.
The purpose of terrorism is not only to destroy the enemy physically, but also mentally. Before a single act of violence was carried out on Friday, the impact of the horror and atrocities that Hamas rained down on Israel was being used as an effective tool of terror against all of Hamas’s enemies in the West.
We must insist, however, that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7). Our strength is not in man and our safety is not in our security. Our strength is in God alone. We must not give into the fear that the terrorists seek to inflict upon the world. They must not be allowed to win. And, through Christ, they will not win.
Hamas’s “day of Jihad” warning should also remind Canadians that the Jews really are just the canary in the coal mine. The demonic Islamic extremists that compose Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and all other terrorist organizations only see Israel as the most hated of all the people in the world they believe should die. Israel is not just the frontlines of this war, the presence of Israel is the main reason these terrorists have not turned their full fury upon the United States, Canada, and all other Western nations.
The media may paint the war in Israel as a conflict between two peoples that do not get along. The ongoing fallout should instead be a reminder that Hamas, Iran, and all who are on their side believe themselves to be in a fight to eliminate not just Israel, but the entirety of a Western world that has been founded on Judeo-Christian values.
In the face of this terror, we should not be afraid but should instead place our full trust in the sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ—all the while ensuring that we elect politicians who understand the deep depravity of reality and are prepared to make decisions accordingly.
Finally, however, we must remember Jesus’s own words that there will be “wars and rumours of wars” (Matt. 24:6) until the end of the age. Only then, when Jesus Christ returns in glory, will the cannons be silenced, the swords be laid down, and the world be at peace. Let us pray for peace on earth and peace in our time. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
For the Lord will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance. Judgment will again be founded on righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.
Psalm 94:14-19
Read More: Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald, “US aircraft carrier sent toward Israel is world’s largest warship.”