bestcurrentnews 2024 Ramadan Prayer

The Human Shields of Gaza

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October of 2023, the United Nations reports that 70% of those killed in Gaza were women and children. Accurate casualty numbers are difficult to find in war situations. However, this percentage is certainly plausible, given that Hamas’ leadership has admitted that they are not responsible for the people of Gaza. 

On October 27, 2023, Russia Today’s Arabic channel interviewed Moussa Abu Marzouk, a prominent Hama political bureau member. He was asked by the interviewer why Hamas had never built bomb shelters for the citizens of Gaza, yet there are hundreds of miles of tunnels in the territory. He replied, “We built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being killed in airstrikes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels…Seventy-five percent of the population of Gaza are refugees, and it is the UN’s responsibility to protect them.”

Many residents of Gaza speak out against the Hamas and its leadership. For instance, a user on X wrote, “You have destroyed Gaza, killed its people, and displaced its residents, and you continue to trade in our [lives] and to delay the hudna [i.e. ceasefire with Israel].” Another Gazan Facebook user posted, “You saw what happened to us in Gaza when the resistance became a media show, a business, a [form of] robbery, and a livelihood; its leaders and their families dine on delicacies while feeding on our blood…”

PRAYER:

When Hamas became the ruling leader in Gaza in 2007, it was well known that the terrorist group Hamas taught the boys to be jihad warriors to kill Jews and used Palestinian women and children as human shields. Pray for God’s divine protection of the innocent in this war, and to send His holy angels to keep the women and children in a hidden place. Ask Jesus to appear to them in dreams and visions, giving the revelation that it is Christ who will save them and bring them hope.

bestcurrentnews 2024 Ramadan Prayer

The Women in Gaza and Hamas

Hamas won a majority in elections in 2006 and took control of the Gaza Strip. Elections have not been held in almost 18 years, and during this time, the status of women in Gaza has steadily eroded. 

The 1988 Hamas charter states, “The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the Moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men…Woman in the home of the fighting family, whether she is a mother or a sister, plays the most important role in looking after the family, rearing the children and embuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them.”

Women make up approximately 50% of the population in Gaza, but under Hamas rule, their influence and fundamental rights are often denied. Since Hamas’ rise to power, the unemployment rate for women has risen by 27%, with only 22% of women in the labor force. 

Beginning in 2013, Hamas instituted gender segregation in schools and began to enforce a “code of modesty” in public places mandating that women wear a hijab. The code also included a prohibition on women using a male hairdresser, smoking in public, and even submitting complaints of incest. 

No law in Gaza prohibits violence against women, and those who submit an official complaint may find themselves the subject of public shame and abuse. 51% of married women in Gaza admitted to being victims of some form of violence from their husbands. 16.7% of 12-17-year-old girls reported suffering physical or psychological violence from teachers or classmates. Child marriage is common, with 29% of women married before the age of 18 and 13.4% before the age of 15.

PRAYER POINT

Consider the present life of a Muslim woman in Gaza. Not only is she living amid war around her, but she does not have the liberties in her home or her community that Western women enjoy. She is expected to raise her sons to be a jihad warrior and teach them to hate the Jewish people. Her life is stressful and fearful, and she is without peace in her heart. As we realize how our God loves her, pray He will draw her to Himself, and reveal the tenderness of Jesus to bring her to salvation.

bestcurrentnews 2024 Ramadan Prayer

What is Hamas

Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al Islamiya (Arabic for Islamic Resistance Movement), governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties. Its rival party, Fatah, rules the “West Bank” in Israel. 

Hamas was founded as the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm in Palestine in December 1987. In 1988, Hamas published its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of Islamic rule. Article 13 of the charter states, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”

In 2006, Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats, a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip elected the council. The election outcome was not accepted by the rival party, Fatah, and the party ousted Hamas from power in the West Bank. In Gaza, Hamas defeated Fatah’s militias and retained power. Consequently, Palestinians have not voted for a legislature since 2006.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip as a de facto one-party state. The Freedom House gives the Gaza Strip a score of 8 out of 100 for its freedom status because the political and civil rights of residents are severely restrained or denied.

PRAYER

Under the leadership and teachings of Hamas, the Palestinians have been taught by them not just to dislike but to hate the Jewish people. The deception of hatred is rampant among them. Because they do not bless Israel, they do not realize that they are under a curse (Genesis 12:3) In the past few months, more than 200 Palestinians had a dream or vision of Jesus Christ at one time, and all of them received Christ. Pray for the Palestinians to have dreams and visions during this difficult time, bringing them to salvation.

bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan 2013 – Day 23 – The Plight of Islam’s Children

2013 Ramadan PrayerThe words of the “adhan” or the Muslim call to prayer are first words a newborn Muslim baby hears. His or her father whispers into the child’s right ear, “God is great, there is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Come to prayer.”  This is the crux is Islam, acknowledging Allah and Muhammad as the perfect example.

By the time a Muslim reaches the age of 50, he has heard this repeated nearly 90,000 times. That is roughly 1,800 times per year every year since the day he was born.

In some nations, the call to prayer is not the only tenet of Islam that children learn at an early age. A 2011, report regarding school textbooks in the Middle East revealed the Egyptian school children are taught Christians and Jews are infidels. And for many years textbooks in Palestinian schools have rejected Israel’s right to exist, and have portrayed a Middle East in maps and through text without the nation of Israel on them. For instance, the following is from a 12th grade Palestinian textbook: “Palestine’s war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.”

Palestinian Media Watch released a video of a young girl reciting a poem about Jerusalem on Palestinian Authority TV that calls Jews the most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys and wretched pigs. It ends with the lines:

 As long as my heart is my Qur’an and my city

As long as I have my arm and my stones

As long as I am free and do not barter my cause

I will not fear your throngs

I will not fear the rifle.

In April of 2013, The Guardian reported approximately 37,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 to 17 were receiving weekly military training classes in the Palestinian area of Gaza. The boys learn about assault rifles and other weapons, first aid and firefighting. During school breaks, voluntary camps are offered where students can learn how to handle guns and explosives. The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades assists in the training. They deny the use of real weapons, however a video that was filmed at a school near Gaza City shows students carrying assault rifles and one boy firing an artillery shell at a replica of an Israeli watchtower, complete with an Israeli flag. About 5,000 boys have participated since the program began in September 2012, and the Palestinian government is considering adapting the course for teenaged girls next year.

Another video, filmed in Deir ez-Zor, Syria was posted to the Internet in June which shows children training at an Al-Qaeda. Save the Children estimated that two million children were innocent victims of the war in Syria. Many children struggled to find enough food to eat, girls were being forced into early marriages to protect them from the threat of sexual violence, and armed groups were recruiting other children. Children as young as eight have been used as human shields in the fighting.

The Taliban in Afghanistan recruits orphans to act as decoys and to be suicide bombers against western forces in Afghanistan. According to Britain’s Channel 4, Taliban fighters promised an eight-year-old orphan boy named Neaz a handful of coins worth 91 cents to go with them. They gave him sweets and taught him to use a gun and build IEDs. After gaining the child’s trust they tried to convince him to use a suicide vest and blow himself up at a checkpoint. After questioning how he could spend the coins he was promised if he blew himself up, he eventually escaped and turned himself into police. He now lives in an orphanage.

Prayer Points:

In Matthew 19:14, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them…”  Pray for the children of Islam who have become orphans because of war in their nation. Ask God to watch out for them, enabling them to be cared for by people who will not use them as weapons or decoys.

Many Muslim children are taught to hate non-Muslims from the time they are small children. Pray that God will break through the years of indoctrination with His love and reveal His heart for all people.

Pray the Spirit of Truth will be revealed to these children, causing the stronghold of deception to be broken over the minds of Muslim children and that they will be introduced to salvation through Jesus Christ.