Remembering October 7, and why the church must still stand with Israel

Well, folks, three years have passed since that dark morning of 7 October 2023. I want you to sit with that for a moment. It is not a headline to us. It is a wound that leaves a deep scar.  took 251 hostages. And they did not only strike soldiers. They went into homes. They went to a music festival. They took families. They took babies.

You see, Israel marked the third anniversary this week. By the Hebrew calendar the national day of remembrance fell on Monday, 5 October 2026, two days after Simchat Torah, the very feast on which the attack came in 2023. Flags were lowered to half-staff. And at 6:29 in the morning, the minute the assault began, the nation bowed its head. There is something very solemn about a people remembering the exact minute.

Now we do not write this to stir up a fleshly anger. Anger is a poor teacher. We write it so the church will remember, so the church will pray, and so the church will tell the truth. God is still on the throne. That has not changed. But neither has His call to bless the people He has not cast away.

What Israel remembered

At the ceremonies in Jerusalem, President Isaac Herzog laid a wreath and called for a full investigation into the failures that allowed the attack. Deep down and in common sense, I think that is the right thing to do. Grief and accountability can stand in the same room, where a nation can mourn her dead and still ask how the watchmen were caught out asleep. The Scripture does that. It weeps, and it also tells the truth.

As I watched online Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the work is not finished. His words, as reported by CBN News on 6 October 2026, were these: “In Gaza, there will be no rule by Hamas. Anyone who was involved in the attack against us, anyone who held our people hostage, is living on borrowed time. We will reach him, just as we reached the others.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said about 6,000 terrorists crossed into Israel that day. About 4,000 of them have been killed. About 2,000 are still alive, and Israel intends to reach them. Israel Daily News carried the same figures and noted that the Shin Bet unit called Nili has been ordered to pursue those involved, from the leaders down to the junior activists.

Now listen. This is justice, not a mood. The murder of civilians is not a protest. Hunting the men who did it is not revenge. It is the duty a just nation owes its dead. Remember what the Lord said through Moses: “You shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it” (Numbers 35:33). God takes innocent blood seriously. We should too.

“Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. — Romans 12:19

That verse does not mean a nation may not restrain evil. Paul is talking to the believer about personal revenge. In the very next chapter he says the ruler does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil (Romans 13:4). There is a difference, folks, between bitterness in my own heart and a government pursuing murderers. Do not confuse the two.

A day of hopelessness, and a church that showed up

I watched Mike Evans of Friends of Zion called 7 October the greatest day of hopelessness in the State of Israel, the day the Jewish people felt they were alone. He said Christians would gather at the Western Wall, with 125 nations and more than five million people pledged to pray, so that Israel would know she is not alone. And I bless that as here in Scotland I am on my knees praying. The battle, as he said, is not only with flesh and blood. Paul tells us we wrestle against principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12). Prayer is not a small thing. It is the work.

That is the church’s place: not to replace Israel (No replacement theology here) or boast over her, as if we were the natural branches and she were nothing. Paul warns us against that pride in Romans 11. Our place is simply to stand beside her and say, “The God of Abraham has not forgotten you, and neither have we.”

Go back with me to the covenant. God said to Abram, before there was a law, before there was a church:

“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” — Genesis 12:3

You see, that promise has never been repealed. It was confirmed to Isaac, and to Jacob, and it runs like a thread all the way to the Messiah, who came through that family so that all the families of the earth might be blessed. When the church blesses Israel, she is not taking a political side. She is agreeing with God.

“For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place: this is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” — Psalm 132:13–14

The slogan, and what it cost

Since that morning the streets of London, Glasgow, and other British cities have filled with the chant, “From the river to the sea.” Many who shout it cannot point to the river or the sea on a map. And ignorance does not make the words harmless. Words mean something, whether the crowd understands them or not.

The river is the Jordan, the sea is the Mediterranean and the land between them is Israel. In the mouth of Hamas, the chant means no Jewish state. It means the people of that land gone. Psalm 83 describes an old confederacy that said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more” (Psalm 83:4). Friends, that is not a new song. It is an old hatred with a new scarf.

We do not have to guess what that looks like when it has a gun. Ariel and Kfir Bibas were not soldiers. They were not politicians. Kfir was a red-haired baby. They were taken from their home and murdered. That is the slogan with a weapon in its hand. When Jeremiah wept over the slaughter of the little ones, he wrote, “The young children ask for bread, but no one breaks it for them” (Lamentations 4:4). Some sorrows are too heavy for slogans. They need tears.

We say this without hatred of Arab people, and without hatred of the young and the confused who repeat words they have not studied. The Lord loves the Egyptian, the Arab, the Scotsman, and the Jew. Jesus died for all. But love tells the truth. The God who made every person also judges the shedding of innocent blood. “You shall not murder” was not given to one nation only (Exodus 20:13).

Britain since that morning

The hate did not wait for a long war. The Community Security Trust has said the week with the highest number of antisemitic incidents in Britain was the week right after the massacre, while Israelis were still being killed and the army had not fully mobilised. Think about that. The pictures that week were of Jewish dead, and the hatred rose. That tells you the root. It was not a reaction to a later campaign. It was an old poison, uncorked.

In the first half of 2026, CST recorded 1,926 antisemitic incidents across the UK. That is almost double the monthly rate in the six months before 7 October 2023, and more than the whole of 2022. Assaults in those six months were the highest six-month total CST has logged. Scotland had 76 incidents, 35 of them in Glasgow. So this is not only a London story. It has come to our own streets.

Two men were killed at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester. Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green. Jewish ambulances were set on fire. On campus, incidents remain far above the level before the massacre. Jewish people in this country are not as safe as they were. That is a recorded fact, not a feeling.

And so the psalm is not a religious decoration. It is a command for a week like this one.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: may they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, prosperity within your palaces.” — Psalm 122:6–7

Notice that those who love her are promised a share in her good. Blessing Israel has always been tied to blessing. Cursing her has never ended well for the nations that tried it. Read the prophets. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, they all had their day against her, and the Lord had the last word.

When a party calls Zionism racism

On Sunday, 4 October 2026, at its conference in Brighton, the Green Party of England and Wales voted by 1,022 to 813 that Zionism is racism, and that it should be treated as any other racism. The motion called for a single Palestinian state over all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital, and a right of return. An amendment that would have protected Jewish members who belong to synagogues that call themselves Zionist was voted down.

In 2025 the same party voted to press for the Israel Defense Forces to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Israel’s Foreign Ministry answered the 2026 vote by saying the party now gives legitimacy to terrorism, and has taken up the aim of removing the Jewish state. Leaked Green chats from the summer also had members speaking of “killing Zionists.”

Let us be exact, folks. I do not want us to exaggerate. The party did not pass a motion that names Christian Zionists as terrorists. It did something near to it, it named the Jewish hope of a homeland as racism, and it has wanted the army of that homeland treated as terror. A Christian who believes Genesis 12, and who blesses Israel, now sits under that label. So be clear, and be calm.

Christian Zionism is not a crime and we are a Christian Zionist ministry with the simple belief that God kept His word about the land and the people, and that the church should bless them and not curse them. If a party calls that racism, the party is wrong. A conference vote in Brighton does not cancel a covenant made with Abraham. God said the land was an everlasting possession (Genesis 17:8). Everlasting is longer than a party conference.

“I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” — Romans 11:1–2

Paul answers his own question before the critics can finish it. Certainly not. And then he spends the chapter showing that Israel’s stumbling is not her end. “Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25–26). If God has not cast them away, the church has no business doing it for Him.

Faces on a flotilla are not the same as the men with the guns

We should also be careful with names. Greta Thunberg joined the Gaza flotilla campaign and sat for a time on the steering committee of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Israel has said documents taken in Gaza show Hamas funding and directing parts of that flotilla network, including men long tied to Hamas fronts in Europe. She is a useful face for that campaign. She is not Hamas. There is a difference, and a truthful church keeps the difference.

The ideology she has sailed under has already shown, at Kfar Aza and Nir Oz and the Nova festival, what it does to ordinary Jewish families when it has a free hand. We can say that without pretending every marcher would murder a baby. The fruit of the idea, where it has held power, is already on record. “You will know them by their fruits,” the Lord said (Matthew 7:16). Look at the fruit. Do not be fooled by the smiling face on the boat.

How the church should answer

Do not answer the street with hatred. Do not answer it with fear. Both of those are works of the flesh, and they will not help Israel and they will not help you.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” — 2 Timothy 1:7

Be wise. Do not go looking for a fight on those marches. The servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient (2 Timothy 2:24). Stand with the Jewish community in your own city. Tell the truth about 7 October. Tell the truth about the Bibas children and other kids. Tell the truth about what the chant means. Open the Bible, and read it in context, not in slogans. If you use Blue Letter Bible, look up the verses. See the Hebrew. See who is speaking, and to whom.

And please pray deeply. Pray for the bereaved, for the hostages still unaccounted for, and for those who came home carrying physical and mental scars that no one should have to carry. Pray that Israel’s leaders seek justice, not through prideful politics. Pray for Arab people who are not Hamas and who also live under the cosh of this wickedness. Pray for our own land, that the church would not be silent when the oldest hatred raises a banner, dons a new scarf, and marches past a synagogue.

He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep (Psalm 121:4). He was awake on that dark morning. He is awake tonight. The shouting in a British street does not move His throne. “Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” I love that. The watchman may fail. The Lord does not.

Three years on, the border communities are being rebuilt and great news of reports from Israel say most of the residents have returned, and young couples are coming to start again. That is not a small thing. It is the victory of life over the men who came to burn it. It reminds me of the promise after the captivity: “I will bring them back, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be My people and I will be their God, in truth and righteousness” (Zechariah 8:8).

Here at Born again Christians we stand with Israel. Not because she is sinless. No nation is. We stand with her because God has not cast her off, because the Messiah came through her, and because blessing her is still obedience. “For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns” (Isaiah 62:1).

So do not grow weary, friends our Lord is faithful. The same Jesus who wept over Jerusalem will come again to her, and His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). Until that day, we remember, we pray, and we bless.

Maranatha. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

A short prayer you can pray

Father, we remember the dead of 7 October. We remember the babies, the mothers, the fathers, and the young people at the festival. Comfort those who still weep. Keep Your people, for You neither slumber nor sleep. Give wisdom to those who lead. Restrain the hatred on our own streets. Make Your church faithful, gentle, and bold. Teach us to bless and not to curse. And hasten the day when the Prince of Peace reigns from Jerusalem. In the name of Yeshua, the Messiah. Amen.

Sources

CBN News, “Israel Remembrance Day,” News on The 700 Club, 6 October 2026, and the matching CBN article, “Israeli Ceremony Marks 3rd Anniversary of October 7th.” Quotes from Netanyahu, Herzog, Katz, and Mike Evans.

1. A great news station the ILTV, “Israel Daily News – October 6, 2026 | 4,000 Hamas Terrorists Responsible For October 7 Killed.”
2. Community Security Trust, antisemitic incident figures for January–June 2026 (1,926 incidents; Scotland 76; Glasgow 35), and the campus report published September 2026.
3. Green Party of England and Wales conference, Brighton, 4 October 2026: “Zionism is racism” motion, passed 1,022 to 813. Reported by Reuters, The Times of Israel, and The Jerusalem Post. The 2025 conference motion urging that the IDF be proscribed was reported by Jewish News, 6 October 2025.
4. Israel’s statement on Hamas links to the flotilla network associated with the Global Sumud Flotilla, September 2025, as reported from documents the IDF said were seized in Gaza.