Three More Male Hostages Released

Yesterday, Hamas freed three men held hostage in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 invasion.

Accountant Ohad Ben-Ami, 56, and his wife Raz were kidnapped from Be’eri, a kibbutz about 2.5 miles from the Gaza border. Hamas released Raz November 29, 2023, during a short truce.

Eli Sharabi, 52, was also taken from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri, along with his brother, Yossi, and Yossi’s daughter’s boyfriend, Ofir Engel, a Dutch-Israeli high school student from Jerusalem who was released the same day as Raz. Eli’s British-born wife, Lianne, and two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were murdered during the October 7, 2023 attack. Yossi died when an Israeli air strike hit the building adjacent to the one where he was held hostage with Noa Argamani, who was rescued by the IDF last summer, and Itay Svirsky, murdered by Hamas shortly after the air strike. Yossi’s body is still in Gaza.

Or Levy, 34, a computer programmer from Rishon LeZion and father to a three-year-old son, fled the Nova music festival together with his wife, Eynav, as Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 260 people and abducted about 40 from the event. Eynav’s body was found in a bomb shelter where she and Or were hiding when he was captured. In total, the Muslim extremists killed 1,200 people that day and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza.

In exchange for these three, Israel released 183 prisoners, 18 of whom have been serving life sentences. Since the January ceasefire agreement, set to end March 1, Hamas has freed 21 of the 33 hostages to be released over six weeks in exchange for a total of 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, 566 of which Israel has already released. At least eight of the 33 on the hostage list are believed to be dead.

More than 48,000 people have died in the war, and another nearly 112,000 have been injured. Both Israel and Gaza are more than 97% unreached with the gospel of Christ, which means most of those who died on both sides never heard the good news that brings salvation.

To pray by name for the remaining hostages, as well as this who have been released, visit our Israel-Gaza page:

Pray for Israel, Gaza and Lebanon in These Trying Times

Father God, please have mercy. Please heal the minds and hearts of Ohad, Eli, Or and every hostage who has been abused, and make a way for the release of all those still held prisoner in Gaza. Bring down every terrorist and release both Palestinians and Israelis from the oppression of Hamas. Please be intricately involved in the healing of these hostages who are now free, as well as other people who survived the massacres. Bring Christians to each of them to show them Your love and share with them Your good news. Provide Christian counselors, doctors and aid workers to help them to healing. Burn within them a deep desire to know the Truth who sets them free, the Messiah they have looked for, their Savior, Jesus. Give them dreams and visions to point them to You. Place Bibles in their hands. Lift the veil from their eyes and show them who You really are. Be near to the hostages still held in Gaza. Let them feel Your presence and hear Your voice speaking tenderly to them. Tend to all their needs, comfort them with Your love, and show them the way to salvation. Place Your angels around them as a shield, and make those heavenly hosts visible to the terrorists who guard them. Invade the dreams of every Muslim extremist and show them the way to salvation. Make them so repulsed by the atrocities they have committed, appalled by the horrors of religion gone wrong, that they lay aside Islam and seek Jesus. Father God, we ask You for miracles. Share with every Palestinian and every Hamas terrorist the good news that brings peace. Draw them up into Your arms to receive Christ as Savior before it’s too late. Awaken Gaza, awaken Israel, awaken Hamas, awaken every hostage, every survivor, every Palestinian, every Jew, every family to Your love. Don’t let even one more lost person die without hearing the good news of Your salvation.

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Mikaela Vincent, and her husband are missionaries who have served nearly three decades in one of the most dangerous countries in the world (See the map at our Persecuted Church page). If you would like to help their ministry at the Prayer Wall and around the world, please consider giving a donation or shopping at Mikaela’s online bookstore.

For a free guide to knowing God’s voice, as well as deep Bible studies, novels and other books for all ages by Mikaela Vincent on walking as one with Christ and others, visit MoreThanAConquerorBooks.com:

Any proceeds this author receives from the sale of the deep devotional Bible studies and other MoreThanAConquerorBooks.com books mentioned in this post go to shining Christ’s light in the darkness and seeing the nations come to Him.

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