"Please pray for the Peace of Israel" Psalm 122  [Chapter-19]

Hamas Summer Camp Militarizes Young Palestinians

 "Yeshua said to His disciples: 'Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.  It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.'"  (Luke 17:1–2)

While many children in Israel and in the West enjoy summer camp—playing, creating art, and learning skills such as swimming and canoeing—in the Gaza Strip, children are enrolled in camps designed to rob them of their childhood innocence. This summer, many of Gaza's children will be participating in about 70 Hamas camp sessions at which they will learn to shoot anti-tank weapons and Kalashnikov rifles, dismantle guns blindfolded, and enact kidnappings of Israelis. Since the kidnapping of three Israeli teens on June 12, thousands of their Gazan peers, aged 12 to 17, have lined up to be militarized through intense obstacle courses, hanging over open flames, and crawling under barbed wirein the heat of the Middle East even as illegal Gazan rocket fire into southern Israel is averaging two a day.  (JPost) "This young generation bears major responsibilities in the future and is supposed to be mentally and physically prepared for any military confrontation," said summer-camp official Hamza Ahmad to Al-Monitor."The Zionist enemy took the land by force and it will only be taken back by force.  This is what we teach these boys, who are the future generation, and who show a great desire to learn and train on weapons and military action techniques," he added. Hamas—voted into power in Gaza in 2007—has insisted for years that Gaza's children attend Hamas- or Islamic Jihad-sponsored terrorist training camps.

Shooting practice at Hamas summer camp

While drawing in campers as young as five years old, Hamas uses other tactics to mould the minds of Palestinian children, including childhood television shows. The Hamas Charter of 1988 calls for the obliteration of Israel and justifies the killing of Jews in Israel and elsewhere.  Considering Hamas merely "a Palestinian political group," as many nations do, obscures the dangers of the group to Palestinian moderates and to the Israelis next door. Article Seven of its charter states:  "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said:  The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry:  O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!"  (The Jerusalem Fund) The charter is ingrained with anti-Semitic language, including accusations that Jews are "the merchants of war" and a "Nazi-like enemy ... (that) make war against people's livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor." Just a few weeks ago, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas reconciled the PA administration’s seven-year rift with Hamas to form a unity government in Judea-Samaria (West Bank). “I would no more reject My people than I would change My laws that govern night and day, earth and sky.  I will never abandon the descendants of Jacob or David, My servant, or change the plan that David’s descendants will rule the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Instead, I will restore them to their land and have mercy on them.”  (Jeremiah 33:25–26)

A Palestinian child learns war in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli High School Students Launch Nanosatellite to Aid Lost Travelers

"I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing."  (Genesis 12:2)

 Recently, a tiny satellite designed by Israeli high school students to locate lost travelers was launched from Russia. Duchifat 1 (Hebrew for "hoopoe," the national bird of Israel), is Israel's first nanosatellite, weighing only 840 grams (1.9 lbs). Nearly 200 young designers and developers at the Herzliya Science Centre built the minuscule device that will travel its 90-minute orbit around Earth listening for the calls of lost travelers with no cell phone reception on land or at sea. Those travelers can place their call to Duchifat 1 using any device with Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) capability, such as handheld amateur (Ham) radios already used by many hikers and seafarers.

 

A hiker admires the view in Tricino, Switzerland.

When Duchifat receives a distress signal, it will broadcast the traveler’s location to the control center on the Herzliya high school premises, which is operated by students who will dispatch the call for help to authorities close to the signal’s location. Duchifat will orbit at varying trajectories and "can pick up signals within a radius of 4,000 kilometers [2,485 miles] on earth from any point in the atmosphere, so at some point in a 24-hour period just about anybody anywhere would be within its range,” said Meir Ariel, who heads Herzliya Science Center High School program. "The launch today marks the beginning of the nanosatellite era in Israel," said Israeli Minister of Science, Technology and Space Yaakov Peri.  "The project is part of the great technological advances in space research, a field which once was exclusive only to big corporations and governments."  (Times of Israel)

Duchifat 1, a nanosatellite designed and produced by Israeli teens to

locate lost travelers, was launched into space on June 19, 2014.

The high school students received partial financial sponsorship for their cube-shaped, solar-powered nanosatellite from the Israel Space Agency and the Herzliya Municipality. It was one of 36 civilian satellites piggybacking a ride to space from Yasny Airbase on a 34-ton Russian-Ukrainian rocket named Dnepr. Dnepr was purposed in the Cold War to cast a net of nuclear warheads over the United States, but was transformed around 1997 when the Ukraine and Russia began a program to turn their "Cold War death machines into commercially viable space launch vehicles," writes The Moscow Times.

 "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."  (Isaiah 2:4)

In these end times, as God is fulfilling many promises concerning Israel and His people, please do pray for Israel as the Good News of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) should be propagated to the Jewish People and the nations.