We have marked the first anniversary of the fateful 7th October 2023. That day fell on us like lightning on a sunny day. Our congregation had scheduled for that day an outing in Northern Galilee. As we travelled in our various cars, some of us were receiving dreadful news reports of terrorist infiltration from Gaza.
When we arrived at the Jordan River, where we planned to enjoy rafting, we found the place closed and the car park empty with the last few cars hurriedly turning around and driving away. The fear was that trouble was to break out in the North as well as in the Gaza area.
In the car park, we discussed what we would do. Young and old, we all fell to our knees together in that car park praying for God’s mercy for our nation and our people and for family members we knew might be facing danger.
We decided to barbecue the food that we had brought and we ate together before dispersing home. We drove home with fear from the Arab cities we had to drive past in order to arrive at home. Every prediction was that the North would be facing an attack from Hezbolla.
When we arrived home, we started to understand the full scale of the devastating blow that the nation had received. We watched video clips on the news channels, a video of youngsters in the Nova music festival dancing erotically with scanty clothes underneath a huge statue of Buddha immediately prior to the unleashing of Hamas machine gun fire.
The estimated number of dead kept growing. The streets of Gaza rejoiced. They paraded our dead naked through their streets and abused their bodies; they boasted the trophies of their successful operation - heads and bodies of our civilians.
We saw the pictures of family homes where Israeli families had been brutally mutilated and tortured prior to their murder. Pictures of elderly women lying dead in pools of their own blood on an outdoor bench.
More than 100 hostages were taken to Gaza. In Israel we are painfully aware that years ago we released 1,000 Arab terrorists from Israeli prisons to receive back just 1 Israeli hostage from Gaza.
Exactly a week later, we gathered in the meeting in Nahariya and continued our study in the book of 1 Corinthians. Our next passage was from 1 Corinthians 10 and we read with great sobriety: “But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
"Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play’. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
"Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer.” The recent images were clear and vivid in our minds.
Pretty soon after October 7th, we heard our first air raid sirens in the North, as Hezbolla started sending out surveillance UAVs and UAVs laden with explosives to show their solidarity with Hamas, without escalating into full blown war. During one of these sirens I was in town, checking our post box.
Pregnant, I tried running down the slope to an underground parking lot for shelter. I couldn’t see my way around the barrier and ducking underneath it while looking back to encourage another lady behind me to come to the car park, I fell and broke two fingers.
Here we are one year later and our troops are beginning to enter Lebanon. Here in the North, we feel God has been extremely kind to us. We have been told that the IDF has been conducting special missions in Lebanese territory and has been spying out Hezbolla terror tunnels undiscovered and has uncovered detailed Hezbolla plans to carry out a 7th October style attack on the North of Israel, included infiltration of Nahariya by sea and land, in which they planned to take as many hostages as possible.
Israel has collected detailed intelligence on Hezbolla and God has enabled Israel to destroy many of those men who had planned to destroy us. Still, for the past year we have been hearing explosions and air raid sirens in the Northern cities. In the last two weeks of escalation, since the pager attack and elimination of Nasralla, we are used to air raid sirens followed by interceptive explosions a couple of times every day.
Direct hits have been mercifully few and sirens enable civilians to shelter from deadly shrapnel. We are told that in Nahariya we have 15 seconds to find shelter.
There are not a few believers living along Israel’s Northern border. There are believers in the Northern town of Ma’alot and a believing family in Matat, right next to the Lebanese border, who have chosen not to evacuate their home – the father is part of a constant guard of civilians who are always ready with guns in case of infiltration. There are believers in Kfar haNasi, Kiryat Shmona, Rosh Pina and Katsrin in the North East and tens of believers here in Nahariya, in the West.
Not all of us live in fear, but many I have spoken to are afraid to leave home during these days. Many of the members of the meeting in Nahariya live in Nahariya itself, within walking distance of the meeting. Some are confined to their homes and becoming depressed. The mothers among us worry for our children when they play outside.
One day there were air raid sirens and explosions just at the time when we would all be setting out to the meeting. Hardly anyone had the courage to go out. Three people came and Michael brought them to our home for a little meeting.
The next week we moved the meeting to our home, which gave some more people confidence to come (it is a more secure location than the location of the meeting hall) and we were 20. But still, those who live a short drive away are afraid to come. What are they to do if there is a rocket or UAV barrage while they are on the way? There is no shelter.
- We are all hoping that the Lord would restore peace to us, that we could live a godly life in quietness and peace. We don’t know whether to dare hope that one family from the meeting who are evacuated from their home next to the Lebanese border, could ever feel safe enough to return to their home and to the meeting here. If as a nation we feared God, we believe He would restore peace to us without the need for war but sadly we think Israel will have to pay the price in the lives of our young soldiers who are going in to Lebanon to try to drive Hezbolla away from our border.
- Now as a congregation we have started learning highlights from the book of Isaiah. Chapter 1 also spoke to us strongly with the image of someone with no more sound flesh on which he could receive a further blow. “Why should you be stricken any more? Will ye revolt more and more?” God asks.
- And as we sat in that meeting with empty rows and a few seated here and a few there, the words struck home, “Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.” We hope to be that remnant among this nation, pleasing in the eyes of the Lord and a sweet savour to Him when He looks upon this people.
- “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity”. How true the statement is today, as it was in the days of Isaiah. And like Isaiah, with all our hearts, we long for the days that Israel will turn to the Lord in true repentance: “Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations... The days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever.” Isa 60: 15, 21.
- Israel is not the same since October 7th. Families have lost loved ones. Families have loved ones in captivity. Villages lie desolate, without inhabitant. Citizens still live in fear and apprehension. Children in the North, like last year, are beginning online learning while the schools are usually closed. One year on and we feel wounded, we have not recovered from the blow. I look at my injured hand, which will never be the same again – and I think of the blow this nation received on Oct 7th. Our injury is not healed. As believers we pray God would restore peace. We also pray for the repentance of this people and their turning to the Lord Jesus with faith and remorse. Only then as a nation will we be healed.
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*Annie is the wife of Michael Nissim, pastor of Nahariya Messianic Fellowship. Together with other faithful believers they have established a church in their beautiful town, which is on the Mediterranean coast, 6 miles from the Lebanese border. When the siren goes, they have 15 seconds to get to shelter.
