Pray for a continuing positive relation with Israel! Praise the Lord for His covenant with the people of Israel on their 70^th year and the miracle of rebirth as a nation. IFA offers several wonderful resources to assist your intercession for Israel. Download our Special Report Prayer Guide: Celebrate Israel, God’s Chosen or sign up to receive it as a 8-day email series. Or sign up for our daily devotional series, God Keeps Covenant: God’s Love for Israel.

Then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. (Ezek 37:21)

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Embassy moves to Jerusalem:

Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan is heading the American delegation attending the ceremony in Jerusalem marking the US Embassy move from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, US congressmen and American Jewish and Christian leaders are also part of the group.

President Trump is being hailed as courageous for implementing a 23-year-old law mandating the move. The long-awaited decision represents a significant turning point for the city and the Jewish people.

All this excitement comes 70 years to the day after US President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize the modern state of Israel.

“I think America is coming in alignment with biblical truth,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

The Bible mentions Jerusalem and Zion almost 1,000 times, and Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.

“This is the theme that’s in our spiritual DNA and therefore when the president of the United States moves the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he is addressing something at the core of Jewish identity,” former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold told CBN News.

President Trump is making history as he moves the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The story starts thousands of years ago when King David captured Jerusalem and made it his capital. Four hundred years later, the Jewish people are expelled to Babylon for 70 years, then return to rebuild the Second Temple with the help of Persia’s King Cyrus.

Gold says Trump’s embassy move might even compare to that of the biblical king.

“That was a huge charitable act on his part, which is in our historical memory and the fact that now President Trump is going to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem puts him in a special category and perhaps even the category with the ancient King Cyrus of Persia,” he said….

Former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said Israel has always battled propaganda.

“Israel’s enemies have always fought on the propaganda argument of words, the fact that Israel was illegitimate and had no right to this land,” Bachman told CBN News. “President Trump, excuse the pun, played a trump card. He’s taken the article off the table.  He said, look we aren’t even going to talk about this anymore – Jerusalem is or isn’t Israel’s, it is. We’re making a decision. It is.”

President Trump’s decision effectively recognizes the western part of the city as Israel’s capital. Most holy sites are in the eastern sector.

Gold says only in a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty would those sites be protected….

Gaza border riots:

Fifty-eight Palestinians were killed Monday in violent clashes with Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, Palestinians said, in a burst of bloodshed that cast a cloud over Israel’s festive inauguration of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel in 2014.

Fifty-eight Palestinians were killed Monday in violent clashes with Israeli forces along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, Palestinians said, in a burst of bloodshed that cast a cloud over Israel’s festive inauguration of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel in 2014….

The Israel Defense Forces said around 40,000 Gazans were demonstrating in 12 locations along the border at the riots’ peak. It said thousands more were gathered at points several hundred meters from the fence….

“The IDF operates with determination in order to prevent massive terror activities constantly being led by the Hamas terror organization in. Each act of terror will be met with a harsh response,” the army said. (Excerpts from Julie Stahl and Chris Mitchell’s article on CBN and the staff of  Times of Israel )