Praying for Peace
in the Land of Christ’s Birth

PROTECTION FOR CHILDREN WHEN THE ROCKETS FALL

“I heard the boom and then the screaming,” Dorit said quietly. All too often, her mind replays that moment the rocket struck near her family in northern Israel. “I can still hear the screaming.”

Her husband, Shmuel, and the couple’s two sons were out getting food when the community warning sirens blared. “I called my husband, and my son Amitai was holding his phone, and I told him, ‘Where is daddy?’”

Shmuel was in a restaurant getting the family meal while the boys waited in the car. Hearing the alarms, Shmuel ran outside to rescue his sons. They just returned to the restaurant when the rocket exploded. A massive fireball ripped through the parking lot and sent Shmuel flying. “I was afraid something had happened to him,” Amitai remembered with anguish. The family cell phone remained on, and Dorit heard everything. It’s a miracle everyone survived.

This area of Israel where Dorit and Shmuel live, near the border with Lebanon, is among the country’s most vulnerable to rocket attacks. Hezbollah regularly launches strikes here. On the day this letter was written, Hezbollah fired more than 165 rockets into these communities, wounding seven people, including a toddler. In an attack in July, 12 children were killed.

The danger has only increased with the growing conflict across the Middle East, but the threat has always been. Dorit remembers feeling the same terror during her childhood. “All my life, I’ve suffered from the tension with Hezbollah,” she said.

“My wish was that my children never feel like I did.”

Samaritan’s Purse Canada is working through prayer and support like yours to give families, like Dorit and Shmuel’s, some peace and protection amid the violence. With a local Christian partner, we are constructing 21 bomb shelters for children at schools—providing places of refuge when the rockets come.

Adi, a mother of four, shared what a relief one of the shelters is to her family. “Thanks to the bomb shelters you built, I can put my children safely in daycare and know they are safe and in good hands. … [It] is essential for our resilience as a family and a community.”

Hila, a school principal caring for 600 students alongside 100 evacuees fleeing the fighting, wrote, “Every day when the kids come to school, I am tense because I know I am responsible. These bomb shelters gave me the confidence that it is possible to allow the kids to come to school despite the enormous security challenge.”

We pray these boys and girls—and all suffering from war in the region—would know the protection King David wrote about in the Psalms. “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by” (Psalm 57:1).

Our teams are also caring for Palestinian families during this conflict. Alongside other Christian partners, we are working to relieve their suffering and remind them that they are not forgotten.

Your generosity makes it possible to provide medical care for these families through clinics that offer primary care, diagnostic labs, medicine, and mental health support. We have also sent mobile medical teams to reach people who cannot access a clinic.

Our world faces tense and violent times, but God is at work through you to share the love of the Prince of Peace—the Hope of All Nations—in the land of His birth. “Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord’” (Luke 2:10-11).