Two soldiers made their way through the winding streets of Gaza City, carefully watching for booby traps. Their objective was to hunt down Hamas terrorists and locate caches of Kassam and Grad rockets and other arms.
As they deliberated whether to turn left or right at an intersection, a woman dressed from head to foot in black appeared from out of nowhere.
“Go this way,” she said, pointing to the right. For some reason, the two soldiers listened to her.
After proceeding for a few seconds, the pair heard a large explosion behind them, in the direction they had almost taken. A rigged house blew up, destroying everything in the vicinity.
The two soldiers asked the woman dressed in black who she was.
“I am the Matriarch Rachel,” she said, referring to the beloved wife of Jacob.
This story, whether true or not, is being circulated in religious circles – via Internet forums, SMS, e-mail and word of mouth – and is fast becoming an urban legend.
There is a tendency among the faithful to introduce metaphysical dimensions to the fighting in Gaza. Two-and-a-half weeks into Operation Cast Lead, religious faith has been integral to many soldiers’ morale.
“We are being swamped with demands, from religious and secular, kibbutzniks and yeshiva students, Sephardim and Ashkenazim,” for the names of soldiers to pray for, said Rabbanit Grossman, director of the Jewish Information Center in the capital’s Mea She’arim neighborhood. The haredi organization has created a special “prayer hotline” for soldiers.
The initiative, backed by the Bostoner rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Horovitz, and Rehovot Chief Rabbi Simcha Hakohen Kook, pairs a soldier involved in the Gaza fighting with a supplicant who prays for that soldier’s health and welfare.
Only soldiers who are interested in the service – or whose family members or friends are interested – are being singled out for this special spiritual protection from Hamas terrorists.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Filed under: Voice, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Israel, Jew, Kassam Rockets, Lebanon, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal, War
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A senior Hamas official said Tuesday that an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip was unacceptable in its current form, as it still does not meet the group’s demands.
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