JERUSALEM (WWJ) – More than two dozen members of a Metro Detroit church group on a religious retreat in Israel are now stuck in the country following attacks by Hamas over the weekend.
Pastor Jon Morales and his wife Anna, along with 25 other people from Oak Pointe Church in Novi, were getting ready to begin another day of sightseeing in Jerusalem last Saturday morning when sirens rang out, he told WWJ.
Anna says the group was putting things on their tour bus when the panic began.
“We were being told by people on the street and our tour guide to get inside the hotel. We could hear the booming, the bombs, as we were going in,” she said.
On Monday the group again had to rush into a hotel basement as sirens went off, Jon Morales said.
While Jerusalem is north of where the attacks began over the weekend and the group has not been in any direct danger, Morales says he is not sure when they will be able to secure accommodations for the return trip home. The group was originally scheduled to come home to Metro Detroit on Wednesday.
“Until they tell us it’s clear, many groups from many parts of the world find themselves stuck in a country at war,” he told WWJ’s Jon Hewett.
The parents of Detroit Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone are among those other groups stuck in the country. Anzalone’s parents were part of a 53-person group from the First Baptist Church of Naples, which is based in Naples, Florida, to go to Jerusalem as part of a church trip.
The couple says the ordeal has been “eye-opening”.
“They’re accustomed to a degree of conflict and things happening, but this is just a different scale altogether. They’re just shocked, family members are being called to active duty,” he said.
“It was very eye-opening to us that they live like this,” Anna Morales added
Officials with Israel’s military on Monday afternoon said it has regained control of all of the communities along its border with Gaza, two days after Hamas launched the unprecedented attack, which left over 900 dead.
Authorities say the death toll includes at least nine U.S. citizens, while an unknown number of others -- including the elderly, women and children -- were kidnapped by Hamas members and taken back to Gaza.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 Palestinians from Gaza have now reportedly been killed as a result of Israeli retaliatory air strikes.