On the morning of October 7, years of planning by top Hamas commanders unfolded in a matter of hours and proved to be swift, bloody, and violently successful.
Breaching the Gaza-Israel border wall in more than 100 locations, as many as 7,000 trained militants streamed into Israel to attack their pre-planned targets: IDF soldiers in key military outposts; civilians in their kibbutz communities; and partygoers at an outdoor music festival.
By the time the surprised and unprepared IDF counter-attacked, Hamas had killed 810 civilians and 379 soldiers, police officers, and security officers.
When they retreated back to Gaza, Hamas militants had kidnapped 251 Israelis as hostages.
Hamas called the military operation “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” named after the Al-Aqsa Mosque located in Jerusalem.
Looking back at the campus protests that broke out immediately, Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress says shouts of “Long live Palestine!” and “Free, free Palestine!” are really antisemitism dressed up in a slogan.
“I think it comes back to not really understanding, or believing, what the Bible says about Israel,” Jeffress told AFN. “God has chosen the nation of Israel to be His people for a special purpose.”
That view by Jeffress is often referred to as dispensationalism. That is the belief God made a covenant with the Jewish people, and with their ancient land of Israel, and that covenant still exists today despite the sacrifice of Jesus as the perfect lamb and Savior of the world.
The alternative view among other Christian believers is the current Church Age replaced God’s covenant with Israel. That view is often referred to as replacement theology or is known by the more academic term supersessionism.
Jeffress sees a spiritual battle in which Satan hates Israel and its people, and he believes that demonic evil has revealed itself in hatred for Israel even after its citizens were murdered and kidnapped.
“Satan is on a campaign to discredit God's claim that He's going to protect His people,” the pastor warned. “If he can destroy Israel, he can destroy people's confidence in God's ability to fulfill His promise.”
