The situation on the ground in Israel has left many of its citizens facing fear and uncertainty as rocket threats continue, Yael Eckstein, president and global CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, told Newsmax on Sunday.
"There are elderly in the area who have come up to me asking for food, volunteers to deliver them food," she said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend," while reporting from a bomb shelter after a siren sounded while she was delivering aid near the site of a deadly attack outside Jerusalem.
"The level of desperation and pain and fear is something I've never seen before, but it's really mixed with this beautiful light of people who are giving hope, comforting one another both inside of Israel and as the fellowship represents millions of Christians around the world," said Eckstein.
She described how families respond when air raid sirens sound, giving them only seconds to seek shelter.
"I'm a mother of four. My youngest is ten years old," Eckstein said. "And at 2:30 [a.m.], we're sleeping, and all of a sudden, our phones start beeping, the air raid sirens going off, kind of like a tornado siren in America, but it's coming from everywhere."
"And we know [it's] 60 seconds until a rocket is headed towards our city and is going to land," she added. "We wait there until we hear the booms overhead. We always say a prayer: The Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."
Eckstein also recounted helping an elderly woman reach safety during another siren alert while delivering aid.
"I was delivering a food box to an elderly 94-year-old woman here right outside of Jerusalem, and as I was sitting with her, a siren started going off. Now, she doesn't have a bomb shelter in her house," Eckstein said.
"And so she started pushing me out. She said, 'Go protect yourself. You're young,'" Eckstein recalled.
"And I looked at her," she continued. "I said, 'I'm not going if you're not coming with me.' And slowly, slowly, as the siren was sounding, I held her, and we walked together to the shelter."
Eckstein said her organization is distributing food, baby formula, and protective gear for first responders as the humanitarian needs grow.
"Anything you do right now, $25, $50, it immediately gets transformed into food boxes that we're bringing to the elderly, into baby formula for babies and parents who are living in bomb shelters who can't get out, into bulletproof vests and helmets for first responders," she said. "The needs are enormous, and we're here on the ground expressing your love through life-saving aid."
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