Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Israel After the Invasion [Featuring Chris Mitchell]

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

Go inside the Hamas tunnels, tour the aftermath of a Kibbutz attacked by Hamas, and gain an inside perspective on the state of Israel after the invasion, as Pastor Allen Jackson talks with Chris Mitchell, the Middle East Bureau Chief for CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network). Through his videos and his conversation with Pastor Allen, Mitchell offers truths about the war that will help you understand what’s happening in Israel and the importance of standing against evil.More about Chris Mitchell:https://www2.cbn.com/person/chris-mitchellSee Pastor Allen’s interview with Chris Mitchell at World Outreach Church:https://www.youtube.com/live/FIWJReTibOQ?si=VtEuc2eEATgJtlSe--It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you.Listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6dListen on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

Hey, today we're going to talk a little bit more about Israel and the Middle East and what's unfolding in that part of the world. You know, here in the States, we think about war. It's almost like a video game. You know, we get the news clips on Ukraine while we have coffee or we see the photos of what happened in Afghanistan over our evening meal. But it doesn't feel real to us. Well, I've been in and out of Israel since I was a boy. I studied at the university in Jerusalem. I have many friends there.

Many friends who live in the communities right along the Gaza border. I mean, this week I got a call from Israeli businessman asking if we could help with the refugees that are all, they haven't been in their home since October, tens of thousands of them, their kids haven't been in school, they haven't been to the normal activities, they've been playing ball games or going to their school dances or whatever normal kids would be doing. They're huddled together in these little hotel rooms, and we were looking for some resolutions to bring some relief to them. And today I get a phone call from one of the professors at Hebrew University saying, our communities don't have ambulance service. Is there anything that can be done to help?

Just poignant reminders that it's more than something on a video screen. There are names and faces and people attached to that. My guest today has lived in Israel for more than 25 years. He's the bureau chief for CBN News in Jerusalem, but he's traveled throughout the Middle East. He understands that region in a way that you only really can if you've lived there for an extended period of time. He's one of the most trusted sources for news that I'm aware of, particularly information that's coming out of the Middle East.

He does a program twice a week. You can find it online. It's Dateline Jerusalem. Rabbi Google will help you find it. You can trust the information that Chris Mitchell shares with you. We're going to talk a bit about October the 7th and what's happened after that. He's even brought some video clips. He's been in those tunnels in Gaza.

He's seen firsthand what Hamas has been doing. And it has not been humanitarian. I think you'll enjoy the interview. Well, I'm excited to get to introduce a friend of mine to you today. Chris Mitchell is the CBN News Bureau Chief in Jerusalem. That's right. Yeah. Chris, you've been there a while.

Since August of 2000, so it's coming up on 24 years. So you went when you were eight years old. That's been a really good run for you. Just out of grade school. Well, you are a window for so many of us into a part of the world where it's really hard to get good information. and I thank you for that. You always appear mild manner and calm and kind, but you were one of the most courageous people I know.

Well, I just try to be in the right place at the right time and be led by the Lord, and sometimes he takes me in interesting places. Well, there's a lot going on right now in Gaza, but I want to step back a minute because one of the stories or things we've talked about in the past, you were in Egypt in the midst of a lot of the so-called Arab Spring. That's right.

Yeah, we're in the middle of Tahrir Square. That was the epicenter of the Arab Spring, at least in Egypt, and they were trying to overthrow the Mubara government. And I found myself in the middle of a riot. And probably the most harrowing time I think I've had in the Middle East. And but God got me out of that. But it was a close call. Yeah, I would say so. You fled for your life. Because it would be hard for you to blend in in Cairo. Yeah, I didn't blend in much at all. And at the time, you know, journalists weren't very accepted. And particularly cameramen and journalists, they were, you know, a target at that time. And I was one of those targets. Took my phone, took my camera. But I got out.

Thank God. Yeah. And then I was with you another time when the earthquakes had happened all the way into Turkey. Yeah. And you described that. It was unbelievable. Oh, it was apocalyptic. And that was just over a year ago.

there in Turkey, and I'd never seen any destruction of that scale. And it was just not only the depth of the destruction, but the breadth. I mean, for miles, like 300 miles long, 50 miles wide. Sometimes whole city blocks were just devastated, you know, happen in the middle of the night. Many people lost their lives. Many people lost their livelihoods, and never seen anything quite like that. Yeah, when you described, you know, we were in the Nashville area. So it'd be like going from here all the way to the Gulf.

Just one total area of destruction, which is almost impossible to imagine. Yeah, and the way the buildings were devastated was almost like they were, the matchbox are just little toy houses, literally just like a pancake or just tipped on its side. Never seen anything quite like that, yeah. That's awful. And can you give us a summary, the whole Civil War in Syria, the magnitude of that, what it's done to that nation and the people. There's a pattern of destruction in the Middle East,

some by natural disaster, some by hatred and violence, but it really has encompassed the region. And I really want the listeners to kind of get a little sense of that. Yeah, in Syria, that started around 2011. That was sort of at the end of the Arab Spring, and there was an uprising in Syria at the time against the government of Bashar Assad, and that was brutally put down.

And actually, there was a time when it was a, look like the government may fall. And what happened was Iran came in, Hezbollah came in. They helped Russia came in and they helped Bashar Assad survive. And the midst of all that, maybe a half a million or more died, were killed and several million fled. So to different places, went to Turkey and on their way to Europe. So it was a devastating place. And that came in the midst. And then ISIS rose up. So that was another season of, of just really, you know, almost biblical devastation. Yeah, I mean, in Syria, they use chemical weapons on their own people.

Mm-hmm. It was unbelievable what happened. They did. They did. Kill their opponents many times, mass murders. It was just a horrific season. When the Assad government, he's an al-Oyite, so it's a minority group. It's an authoritarian regime, a minority dominating the majority of the people. Right.

I think that really I'm after something a little bit, but the Americans listen to the news in 90-second clips, as you know, that's your world. Yeah. And most of us don't take the time to assimilate the bigger picture. Right. But the hatred, the violence, the murder, the destruction, the inhumane things that happen across the Middle East, over a broad period of years,

from the authoritarian government of Turkey to the destruction of Lebanon, the destruction of Syria, the destruction of Iraq, ISIS, the Arab Spring, all those, the one group of people that the global community focuses on, it seems to me, is the Palestinians. That's right. And they're the perpetual victims, not the rest of the Muslim world, and nation after nation, after nation, after nation. And that's where the cry comes out, that there has to be humanitarian aid. There was no cry for the Syrians or the Lebanese or the Armenians or on and on the list goes. And it's not that I lack compassion for the Palestinian people.

but the attention they gain is disproportionate. They have their own division in the UN. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's absurd. Yeah. So now we have a new war. Right.

Initiated by the most beastly of attacks from Hamas coming out of Gaza into Israel. Mm-hmm. I know you have been there and seen that devastation. You lived there, so you've been listening to the Israelis. Yeah. What do the Americans not understand from what we've heard in the news? Well, I think they, first of all, need to realize in a greater way what happened on October 7th. And that was 6.30 in the morning, a massive rocket attack, bigger than most Israelis are ever used to,

and especially the ones right there on the Gaza border. They had lived with and have lived with rocket attacks for maybe 20 years or more. On a regular basis, weekly basis. They have rocket attacks. Yeah, that's what they live with. and 22 of these communities on the northern Ghazan border were attacked by up to maybe 3,000 Hamas terrorists. It was all well planned and orchestrated, and they breached the fence in many ways. And when they came into many of these kibbutzim, these small, many times idyllic communities that it was like a very much of a community or a commune.

People lived together and knew each other. maybe a thousand people or so would live in these communities. Let's take just a minute, maybe help the people imagine. Because it's a community of a thousand people. I'm in Tennessee. It'd be like a little unincorporated town. They have grocery stores and schools and banks and doctors. I mean, it's a self-sufficient community.

They're just small. So the people know one another. It has that sense of we step back in American time a little bit. You know, when you'd have a community of a thousand people, the kids know one another from school. And they're all in. That's exactly. And those were, there was a,

dozen of those communities attacked? 22. 22, actually, yeah. So when they came in, and the interesting thing about it is that many of the people who came in on the attack knew where to go.

Well, let me back up. First of all, there was a first wave of terrorism. They came in. They began shooting at random. Anybody they saw, they would shoot and murder and sometimes mutilate the bodies. It was just wasn't murder. It was humiliation. And so that was the

first wave of that came in. And overall, 1,200 people were murdered and about 240 were kidnapped. And there was sexual atrocities. There was beheadings. There was barbaric things that were done to babies and children. Spouses were killed in front of one another. Women were raped. So it was just horrific time. That was the first wave. Two hours and three later, two hours of three hours later, There was a second wave of many civilians, just Gazans who came in to begin to loot and also did murders and atrocities and some of the kidnappings. So is the word spread? Yes. They kept coming in.

The first wave is really trained terrorists. Correct. They were well armed. They had a very good plan. But when the word spreads in Gaza that the fences are down and the Israelis are not, they're vulnerable. Right. then the general public starts to flood through. Yeah, exactly.

And two things about the general public is that many of them knew where to go to loot because they knew these people. They had worked in these kibbutzim. They had presumably given some of the intelligence to the terrorists. So when they came in, when they were looting, they knew where to go, where the valuables were. They knew some of these people. The other thing is that these people on the Ghazan border, many of them believed in peace. and they would meet some of these guys and people at the border

and take them to Israeli hospitals. So a lot of these people worked for peace, and yet everything shifted on October 7th. And you can imagine many of their views now have shifted dramatically after what they did. Many of the people who knew them were the ones who would come in and loot and rob and murder. It's unbelievable.

You've been down there and actually taken some video. That's right. We have. So if we were going to look at that, Kavar Atsa, it's one of these Kibutseem, one of these little communities. Yeah, we had a tour by IDF Captain, and she gave us a tour. She'd been doing this for probably three months

by now, and she wants people to see what actually happened, because as we were talking, many of people are denying it happen. Many people say AI is responsible for this, or Israel did it to themselves, or that what happened there will never happen

here. And I think when we see the video, you'll see for yourself what happened that day. Yeah, I think before we watch the video, excuse me, it might be helpful. All the Israelis when they finish high school serve in the military. That's right.

So the young woman who's actually your guide on this is a captain in the, I think, wasn't she? And so that's possible because those young people are trained as soon as they graduate high school. Yeah. I studied at the university there, and my professors, you know, it'll be 27 and 28. And they were military veterans, which was really intimidating to those of us were American college kids.

Yeah. And Maya is probably in her mid-20s. I mean, she's just a very young, wrong lady, but very articulate and very passionate about her responsibility to tell the story of what happened on October 7 and the many people whose lives are ended that day. Great. Well, let's watch that video from Kfar Atsa. Thank you for being here. I think that some of you have already seen it with your own eyes, and for some it's the first. time. And I think that being here and seeing it with your own eyes, and I tell this to every

person that comes here, is extremely important. I think that watching it through the screen, seeing photos and videos, hearing about it, is not quite the same as seeing it with your own eyes. IDF Reserve Captain Maya Bentwich gave CBN News a firsthand tour of Kafar Azah, one of the 22 Kabutsim attacked by Hamas on October 7th. Of the 950 residents, Hamas murdered 63, kidnapped in all 10% of the people. I'm going to try and take you back to October 7th, 6.30 a.m. where we have 15 minutes non-stop ongoing alarms, that were alarming even for the people who lived here

and were used to living under fire. Less than 30 minutes later, we have hundreds of terrorists infiltrating this very kibbutz. The estimation is 3 to 400. They come in by air with gliders, buck-eyes. If I land with pickup trucks, most of them had machine guns glued on them set on Ottoman, and with motorists.

bikes and unfortunately come in very well prepared and they just start shooting, rampaging, screaming and yelling in Arabic. They come in with guns, RPGs, grenades, bombs and they just start shooting. And people are hiding inside their mamads. And this is what's going on, this is before 7 a.m. Now we're going to be talking later about what a mamad is, but a mamad is supposed to be protecting you from bombs, from missiles, not from terrorists. And this is the reality of October 7th.

We walked along what has become called the Street of Death. It's not just bodies. You would have dismantled bodies, bodies that were beheaded, that were raped, sexually assaulted, sat on fire. So this man and this dog survived October 7th and she stayed silent and they're now back here. We met Raphael on the way. So how did you survive? A lot of prayers and it's not something logic I can explain because it's not. I can tell you that 10 meters away from me,

people being killed and their house being burned. So I have no logic explained to say why I'm alive and they are not. It is what it is. What's your message to the world? Wake up. Wake up. Today it's here. Tomorrow it's in Paris. Day after it's 9-11.

day after it's going to be in the other place. It doesn't matter how you call the place. They're going to arrive everywhere. To you, the blonde guy, the dark team, everyone's going to suffer. If we're not going to ask, wake up now. They want an Islamic war. As long that you are not going well with the Islamic line,

you are an enemy. It doesn't matter if you are Jewish, Catholic, Buddhism, whatever. It says as time goes by, the story is in danger of being drowned out. But as time goes by, one thing is to remember the people to tell the stories because there are so many. But another is to keep on giving context. We are not in a state of trauma of, oh, this happened to us. We need to keep telling this to the world. No, this is not the situation.

The situation is that something that should concern humanity, not just our nation, not just our people. not just the Jews. Something happened here on a humanitarian level that should concern the world. And the world is stating a lot of opinions as to what's going on around us. And I get that. But you still need the context,

and this is the context. Because like I said, on October 6 there was a ceasefire. And on October 7th, Hamas chose to break it. Betwich took us to a different neighborhood. And if you'd asked residents of the kibbutz, they'll tell you, of the kibbutz they'll tell you was the most beautiful neighborhood. Almost every single person that lived here and was here on the 7th was either murdered or kidnapped, especially from the strip we're just walking.

And four out of the five that are still being held hostage from this kibbutz, from Kfaraza, four of them are from here, from this strip. You'll see their names and faces. When you see the red writing on the signs, it means they were murdered, and when you see the yellow writing, it means they were kidnapped. With Gaza in the background, Bentwich talked about the second wave on October 7th. They were wearing regular clothes, they were not wearing the Nukba forces uniforms, and they loot.

But not only do they loot, they did a lot of the atrocious acts. A lot of the atrocious acts were done by them. They did the murdering, the raping, the sexual assault, the kidnapping, a lot of it was done by them. And then they go back. The mess that you see outside these apartments, and again this is a hundred and six days after, but the mess that you still see outside these apartments, was not done by us. Most of it was not done by the tape. It was not done by the terrorists.

It was done by those who came to loot, by those gossams. Many of the people in Kfarazha believed in peace. These people believed in peace, worked towards peace. We're talking about people that would go at least once a week to the Ghazan border, to pick up sick kids and women who had cancer, drive them to hospitals in the center of Israel so that they could get proper medical treatment. With their own cars, they didn't get paid for it. They did it out of the kindness of their hearts and out of the need, the...

to build a better future because they believed in peace. We talked with Bentwich about her calling. I'm honored to be doing this because I think it's important for people to see it and that as time goes by, it gets harder to see it and to understand, and especially what the world is getting, so we need to get it out there. Every person that comes here, I tell them when they finish here. I'm going to say the same thing to you, that you're now ambassadors. You're not just a part of our heartbeat.

You're now ambassadors because seeing it with your own eyes is different. Chris Mitchell, CBN News, He puts Kabar-Aza, Israel. Chris, when we watch a video like that in the horror of it, we're both Christians. And I know the kind of the knee-jerk Christian reaction is, but we have to be compassionate. And it's hard to sort out our emotions when we see that kind of brutality. And how do we process that?

What do we say to the people listening to us? How do we combine justice in defending yourselves and protecting your family? How do you respond to that? I know you do it for the Christian broadcasting anymore. Well, I think the way to respond is that when Maya there was describing what's going on, she said the battle, the war in Gaza right now has a context. It's not just randomly that Israel decided to go into Gaza and do everything they've been doing for the last number of months.

It's because they came in and they started this war. They murdered all these Israelis. They kidnapped Israelis as hostages and as bargaining chips post-October 7th. And so there is a reason why Israel is there in Gaza. And it's what they're trying to do as well inside Gaza. And as we have talked to many of the people in the IDF, they do all they can to avoid civilian casualties. So the war was started by Hamas and Hamas has said they'll do October 7th again and again and again. It's not as if this was a one thing. They're committed to destroy Israel and kill

the Jewish people. It's like the Holocaust all over again. And that they have the means and for the last 18 years or so, as they've been in control of Gaza, they've been developing rockets and weapons and grenades and tunnels to come against the Jewish state and destroy Israel. So that gives a context to what's happening. And as I said, the IDF is trying to do what they can to minimize civilian casualties. They telegraph to Hamas where are they going to go. They send leaflets. They text people.

They call people. Get out of harm's way. On the other hand, Hamas uses their own civilians as human shields to protect them and as a propaganda tool. Because when the more Palestinians die, the world has an outcry against Israel. It's really been repeated over and over again. I've been covering the wars in 2008, 9, 2012, 14, 21. It's the same script. Right now it's just on a much bigger scale.

But Hamas does this over and over because they get the sympathy of the world. by putting their own population in harm's way. And they count on either the willful ignorance or just an uninformed world to be able to manipulate it by their propaganda. Yeah. And it works. It works against, because of the media. And when the media gets riled up, it influences public opinion.

It influences politician. And it influences policy. I have no patience with the media or even our own administration because they know the truth. They have access to the information. It's not hidden from them. And they perpetrate this propaganda. They tell a lie to manipulate enormous chunks of global population for their own political agenda. It's evil. I don't have any pay. You don't have to say that. I don't work for CBN. So I can be a little more. You had you, you took a, he had a quote from John Spencer in your video, who's part of the Modern War Institute. And he said that there's been no nation in history.

that has done more to prevent civilian casualties than the Israeli military has. That's right. And, I mean, it's not subtle, but that isn't being told. Yeah, and the IDF is doing probably a war that may never have been fought before, because as we'll see and I know that we're going to have the story on the terror tunnel, they're fighting under the ground and they're fighting above the ground. And they have had to learn how to do this all the while by trying to free the hostages while trying to defeat Hamas and trying to protect the civilian population

in the midst of an underground warfare and an urban warfare. Never been done. And yet, men like John Spencer are applauding IDF, the military for doing what they are trying to do. You mentioned the tunnels. We might as well look at that. I think it's important. This attack was not a handful of drunk teenagers in the back of a pickup, joyriding, that caused a little problem.

this was a very well-orchestrated, well-trained. Many of them trained someplace other than Gaza with a central command structure. You know, I listened to the commands. I went to the Israeli embassy in D.C. And got to watch some of the footage. And I listened to the commands, bring the behead people, bring the heads back.

We want to walk them through the streets so the people can celebrate. Yeah, and they did. It was reprehensible. Yeah, they did. But they have spent years and years, well over a decade, building these tunnels, billions of dollars, this most elaborate system, money that could have gone to help the people in schools and hospitals and infrastructure,

and it's invested in a plan to destroy Israel. So you've been down in the tunnels now. I watched you. My breath got short as you're going into those tunnels. But I think it's worth letting the people see. Any set up to that they need to know? Well, we've been asking the idea if we can get in and they gave us a call on a Saturday. night. Be ready Sunday morning to go in. We went in with 16 other journalists, a general,

as you'll see in the story, a couple of IDF spokespeople. And it was a unique firsthand experience to see what had been built up for 18 years, hundreds of miles of tunnels. We got to see one that was a little over half a mile, but you multiply that by 500 or 1,000. You get an idea of the breadth of the tunnel system in there. the billions of dollars that was spent to manufacture and build those. Without any jet lag, we're going to step into the tunnels in Gaza. What you can see in front of you over here is one of many tunnels that are underground in each and every one of these neighborhoods.

Deep in Kahn Yunus, currently ground zero of the fight in Gaza, IDF Brigadier General Dan Goldfors talked about the extent of the tunnel system and how the IDF found, tunnel shafts everywhere. There's a shaft in every place you can find. There's a shaft in the kindergarten, there's a shaft in the school, there's a shaft in the mosques, there's a shaft in the supermarket, wherever you go. There's a shaft going down into the underground tunnels and underground world of this unhumane entity of Hamas.

Goldfuss also pointed out how this underground network played into the October 7th strategy and aftermath. They entered Israel, attacked the villages, raped, burned, murdered, slaughtered civilians. Some of them were taken in as trophies, just as trophies, taken in into these tunnels, into this tunnel, and such as, they took time, money and effort building the underground terror tunnels. Let's go in. So we're headed right now into one of the tunnel shafts here in Kan Unis, and as you'll see

in just a second. something when you see it on film, but when you see it for yourself and be in it, it's a whole new world. You can see for yourself. This is what Hamas has been doing for 18 years, building these tunnels, hundreds of miles of tunnels. We stopped at a section used by Hamas guards,

and Goldfis explains how this unique battleground creates an historic challenge for IDF soldiers. So what we're doing here in Cagnuans, is for the first time in world military history, is actually maneuvering over and underground simultaneously. So it took us time to evolve, to learn, to understand how to do that, but that's what we're doing today. As we move deeper, the heat and humidity became much more intense. Then came a surprise at the next section.

Have a small request, and there is switch of all your lights. I'm trying to give you is the feeling of a one-year-old baby in this tunnel. The feeling of the kidnapped people brought in here and taken in these tunnels. No electronics, no connection to the outside world. Just darkness and darkness and darkness from all points of view. With lights back on, Goldfish showed us the room. Look at the tiles, electricity, time, effort, money that was put in to build this. We're now at the moment approximately 15 meters underground.

We're going deeper and deeper. We're in what the general calls a strategic tunnel, not a tactical tunnel where fighters can go from place to place, but a tunnel used by Hamas leaders. It also a place where they know that at least three of the hostages were kept. Our next stop revealed a much different room, furnished and equipped for both guards and Hamas leaders. This is years of planning.

So if anybody has a question, how long do I think the 7th of October was planned for many years? They plan how to attack women and children in the villages. This area is likely to compound from many of the Hamas senior leaders, but after the war began, they built this cage and they believed that at least 12 hostages were held here, three of whom would have been released. If anybody in the world needs evidence for the horrific actions, that the terror entity Hamas has done, you're in it. You're in this evidence.

From this place over here, at least three hostages were released. They included Sapir Cohen, Saha Calderon, and Oryakov. The tunnel holding these hostages goes on for more than half a mile. As you can see in this tunnel, so many places, it goes off to another direction. so you can see that this would be like a spider's web all the way through Khan Yunus and many other places of the Gaza Strip. Given the size and setup, General Goldfuss believes Hamas leader Yaya Sinwar

stayed in this tunnel and vows to track him down. He doesn't care about his people. He's putting his people between him and us. He's putting the civilians, the population between him and us. He's running. He's on the go. He's on the run. We're reaching. Above ground, millions worldwide accuse Israel's military offensive of genocide. After an extensive study, John Spencer of West Point's Modern War Institute counted that claim, writing, despite the unique challenges Israel faces in its war against Thomas,

it has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in his war. history. When I have to go into a neighborhood, I call the civilians out of the neighborhood to prevent for myself to either injuring or hurting anybody who's not involved. I take outmost time and effort to do so. In the endless maze of the underground in Canunas, you can see the different munitions that being counted in these underground tunnels. You can see grenades. After displaying certain munitions found in the tunnel, Golfus expressed his amazement at the overall amount. The amount of weapons which you find in every house,

every house, every building you move into and you find amounts of weapons. You'd expect that you wouldn't find in a kindergarten, you wouldn't find weapons. So you go in a kindergarten and you find dozens of RPG. And then you go into a school, you go into a UN school, and you find dozens of mortars. and IEDs and it's just everywhere. You want to go into a mosque and you want to say, the mosque is out again, but it's not.

There's shaft from the mosque down underground and in the mosque you find mortars, RPGs, IEDs. And you say, it's just in every corner. It's really been an extraordinary experience to see firsthand to witness the heat, the humidity, the extent of these tunnels that run for Miles under Canyunas and hundreds of miles through all of the Gaza Strip. After nearly two hours, we returned toward the light,

struck by the realization that many hostages held for more than 100 days likely remain in tunnels like this one. Goldforce ended his briefing with a message to the world. We are fighting a just war. On the 7th of October, we were attacked in a savage attack. This is a just war. And we will win this war. Patience and with stubbornness from every meter, overground and underground.

And my message to the world is patience. But the fighting here is not only between Israel and Gaza. This is a fight between the free world, a world that believes in freedom, in human rights, in humanity, in life, to terrorists to believe in death. Chris Mitchell, CBN News, Kahn Yunus, Gaza. That's almost beyond belief, Chris. If it wasn't your face in those tunnels,

I would think AI had created something. Yeah. It was a remarkable experience, and especially the experience of actually seeing where the hostages were held. We went there with Joel Rosenberg. We shared a cameraman, so CBN and TBN were inside the...

those tunnels at the same time. And we felt appropriate to pray right there on site for the hostages, for their freedom, for the comfort for the families of the hostages that are still remaining. And it was such, I felt just important to be there and tell people and show people exactly what it looked like, what it felt like, and bring the news back to the people. In fact, after we came out, we, Joel and I took communion and after we came out and we prayed that that land would be, had been so defiled that would be consecrated and redeemed. That's biblical land. That's the land of the tribe of Judah. And God has a purpose for that land. And we just wanted to pray that God would redeem what had been defiled. Well, when you watch that video, you know, to me it's a

reminder that evil exists, that it's not about a religion or a race or a place on the planet. Evil is a spirit. It's expressed through human beings. And ultimately, the only thing evil will yield to is a power greater than itself. It's why our faith is so important that the God we worship is almighty. And we can have hope that peace can triumph because the power that is with us is greater than the power of evil. otherwise evil would triumph.

It's illogical, it's irrational. It can't be negotiated with. If it yields, it's only to gain an advantage. And something about those tunnels, when you turn those lights off, and we were in that absolute darkness. And all I could think about was those hostages, trapped in that space with those people that they had watched and brutalized their family and friends.

I will pray on a more regular basis, not only for the peace of Jerusalem, but for those families that have been affected. It's no longer a theory. It isn't a news feed. You made it really personal. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. Well, the general made it personal as well when he had us turn off all the lights. And you can imagine that when they were kidnapped, they were traumatized, terrorized, horrified, and then that extended to now where, you know, 130 some days after that. So you can imagine the compounding emotional, mental, spiritual turmoil that they go through now. And then the ones that are released are going through their own, you know, restoration, physical, emotional, spiritual.

But it's important to stand in the gap. Because there's still hostages. That's right. Down in those tunnels. Unbelievable. Well, my guest today is Chris Mitchell. He's the CBN News Bureau Chief in Jerusalem. Chris, I know you do regular reports on CBN.

Is there a particular day when they air? How can people find your reports? Yeah, they can go to Jerusalem dateline.com. We broadcast on Tuesdays and Fridays. We have regular reports on the 700 Club and on CBN's YouTube page and channel or CBNNews.com, a variety ways. And it's been a real blessing to be with you. And I hear in the States, because I think it's important that people know, as you were mentioning,

evil exists and what's happening has happened there. We're not immune from it. In fact, what I've been hearing since October 7th is America needs to wake up and you saw that man in the story in Kaffaras and I said, what should we do? And he said, wake up. And I think that's the message for us. Wake up. Because we need to be prayed up. We need to be prepared and we need to be alert and know what's happening. to be informed like the sons of Issaacar for such a time as this. Well, people ask me consistently where I go to get news that I trust. And I would recommend Chris Mitchell. Go to the Dateline Jerusalem.

You can believe what he tells you. He'll help you be aware of what's happening in the Middle East so that we can take our place here in the States. He's also an author. Chris, you've got a couple books. I've read them, ISIS, Iran, and Israel. And then Destination, Jerusalem. That's right, yeah.

And they can find those. On Amazon. Yeah. What can't we find on Amazon? Chris, thank you for being with us again. Thank you for what you're doing in Jerusalem. Great to be with you. You're always welcome in Tennessee.

Thank you. You know, for those of us that live pretty insulated lives and don't have to look at the harsh realities that are unfolding around the world, those videos can be pretty uncomfortable. Well, I've been to the Israeli embassy in D.C. in the last couple of weeks, and I have watched the raw footage from that day, were the seventh. And I assure you that the versions today were mild. It was uncomfortable. It was such

an intentional, purposeful attack. You know, the first wave of people that invaded those communities when the wire was cut on the fence were in uniform. They were clearly, had they had military training. They've learned since then. Many of them had been trained in Iran and smuggled back into the country. They had military-grade weapons. But a couple hours after that part of the attack began. The citizens in Gaza realized that the fence was breached and the Israelis were vulnerable. And what you saw next was people on motorcycles, bicycles, their own personal vehicles. They had taken kitchen knives, whatever they had that was an implement or a tool that would intimidate, threaten, destroy. And they began to plunder those homes. They worked in those communities. They interacted with them.

They went to their hospitals. The attackers knew the names of the people, where they would live, their addresses, the ages of their children. It was a very purposeful, evil destruction of humanity. It's awful. And then we watch our responses at home. In our most elite universities, the leaders of those universities have refused to condemn the activity of October the 7th when Hamas brutally murdered and humiliated innocent civilians, not military bases, innocent civilians in their home, and our most elite academics wouldn't condemn it.

That's wicked. They should lose their jobs, not just their positions. We can't employ people to train our young people that have filters that are that broken. It has become chic to be anti-Semitic. We see it across our nation. We see it in the media. Folks, it is not chic to hate any people group.

It's wrong. Now, the Jewish people happen to have been of focus of hatred over so many centuries, they have their own word. Anti-Semitism means you hate the Jewish people. It's not complicated. I have Jewish friends in America. They will say to me quietly in a private setting, do you think I could come to your home if it gets really desperate?

Well, the question, the reason we're doing this podcast, honestly, is to look at this idea of what we can do. We're not powerless. We're not without options. We have voices. We still have some liberty and freedom. use your voice as an advocate for the nation of Israel. Tell what you know about what happened on October 7th.

Our administration, in the last 48 hours, the administration in the United States has suggested a two-state solution as a means of ending this conflict. That's insane that you reward brutal, animalistic terrorist with acknowledging them, giving them a sovereign state. That's like rewarding Putin by giving him Ukraine as a, way of ending the war. It's beyond absurd. The only way our leaders can put forward an idea like that is they are counting on either the general population here being woefully uneducated or

willfully ignorant. And I don't want you to be either one of those things. We can do something. We can use our voice. Talk to your friends. Talk to your neighbors. Listen to Chris Mitchell so that you can be a voice and advocate for the Jewish people. There is right and wrong in our world. Everything isn't gray. And if we will use our voice and stand for the truth,

the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is still watching over Israel? He says he never slumbers nor sleeps. And here's the good news. He's watching over your life and my life. You see, our faith really is the issue. The transformation of a human heart is the only solution

to overcoming evil in our world. We'll never defeat it on a battlefield, ultimately, we'll never defeat it politically. It takes the transformation of a human heart and the return of our king. It's a time to lift up your head. You can make a difference. Together, I believe we will.