Feast of Tabernacles begins with visits to impacted kibbutzim, massacre sites

ICEJ funding seven major rebuilding projects in devastated villages of Western Negev

Press Statement by David Parsons, ICEJ Senior Vice President & Spokesman

The annual Christian celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, sponsored by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, will kick off on Monday (6 October) with a special Remembrance Ceremony in the Gaza border area with local community leaders to honor the more than 1,500 Israelis killed or abducted on October 7 exactly two years ago. The solidarity visit by over 600 Christians from more than 50 countries will take place as Israel awaits news that a ceasefire has finally been reached to end the Gaza conflict and release all the hostages in coming days.

The solidarity and remembrance gathering will held Monday morning on the Sapir College campus and will feature local survivors of the Hamas massacres giving their personal accounts of the tragic events on Simchat Torah in 2023. Speakers will include Doron Libshtein, brother of Ofir Libshtein, the late mayor of Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council who was killed that morning defending his home village of Kfar Aza, and former MK Shai Hermesh, who survived the onslaught of terrorists at Kfar Aza.

The hundreds of Chrisitan supporters of Israel also will visit key sites connected to the Hamas atrocities, including the Nova music festival site and the ‘car graveyard’ near Tkuma.

In addition, the Christian delegations will see and hear how the devastated Israeli communities of the western Negev are slowly returning and rebuilding their lives after the October 7 terrorist invasion.

To help these battered communities recover, the Christian Embassy is currently funding seven major rebuilding projects in the Gaza border area, at a cumulative cost of over $6.8 million. These projects include:

* Completely rebuilding the destroyed youth activity center in Kibbutz Be’eri;
* Turning a retirement home in Be’eri into a trauma care and activity center for seniors;
* Repairing a kindergarten to serve as a children’s trauma center in Kfar Aza;
* Constructing an innovative music therapy center in Kfar Aza;
* Building a greenhouse classroom and learning center at a new agro-tech school in Sde Nitzan;
* Restoring and expanding an animal therapy petting zoo and horse ranch in Kibbutz Urim; and
* Building five large bomb shelters at new trauma care centers in the Sha’ar HaNegev and Sdot Negev regions.

“We look forward to our Feast pilgrims being able to meet these special Israelis who have displayed such amazing courage and resilience while living along the Gaza border, and it is especially timely to visit right when these two very tough years of war might be ending,” said ICEJ President Dr Jürgen Bühler. “The Christian Embassy has committed to a series of major rebuilding projects to help our friends in the western Negev restore key facilities to enhance their communal life, with special emphasis on assisting youth and the elderly, as well as providing trauma care for all.”

The ICEJ’s Feast of Tabernacles will then move up to Jerusalem for four more days of events from Tuesday through Friday of this week. On Wednesday evening, the ICEJ will host a colorful solidarity event with numerous Israeli guests which will feature addresses by President Isaac Herzog, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, and Fijian Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka, plus a special awards ceremony with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel to honor the seven nations that have opened embassies in Jerusalem (United States, Guatemala, Paraguay, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea and Fiji). In a first, official representatives from all seven nations will be present on one stage for the occasion.

Other Feast highlights will include the popular Jerusalem March, which will take place in Sacher Park on Thursday afternoon, starting at 1:30 PM.

More than 1,500 Christians from over 70 nations have arrived in Israel to participate in the biblical festival of Sukkot, which has been staged by the Christian Embassy every year since 1980.

The ICEJ’s Feast 2025 constitutes the largest solidarity mission to Israel since the war began two years ago, and will feature large delegations from Western countries that have been increasingly critical of Israel, including Norway, France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.