Award-winning Christian musician and artist Aaron Shust is asking fans to pray and support three children whose parents died this month in a Hezbollah rocket barrage on an Israeli settlement in Golan Heights.
Shust took to Instagram to raise awareness about the death of Israeli civilians Noa and Nir Baranes on July 9, both of whom were 46. The couple leaves behind their three children, ages 13, 16, and 18.
Shust, who has won multiple Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, including Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and New Artist of the Year in 2007, said his best friend’s son, Shuki, is good friends with one of the couple’s sons, Matan.
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The parents were on their way home to Kibbutz Ortal, near southwest Syria, when their car was struck during a barrage.
“Our goal is to rally support and raise funds to ease the financial burden on the Baranes family during this difficult time and for the children’s future,” he wrote.
“Let’s show them Ahava Yeshua-the Love of Jesus by caring for them financially, and let’s lift them up in prayer.”
The artist provided the link to an online fundraiser that has raised over $76,000 to support the Baranes children, who “now face an uncertain future without their loving parents.”
The Golan Regional Council said the couple were “beloved members of Ortal.”
“They came to Ortal in 2012. Nir managed the poultry branch and, before that, the tourism and culture branch,” the council noted in a statement, according to The Jerusalem Post. “Noa was the secretary of the plantation branch.”
After the immediate aftermath of the Hezbollah attack, Ori Kallner, head of the Golan Regional Council, called on the Israeli government to attack Hezbollah “with force” to move the offensive into the Lebanese side of the border.
“We call on the government of Israel and the IDF on this difficult evening to protect the residents of the Golan, to stop the policy of restraint, attack our enemies with force and restore security to the residents of the north and the Golan,” Kallner stated, according to CNN.
“We will not allow the Golan to be turned into Israel’s security zone. The offensive must be moved into the other side of the border, into enemy territory,” Kallner added.
The Golan Heights is under Israeli government control after it was captured from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967. The area is recognized internationally as part of Syria.
Amid Israel’s war against the terror group Hamas in Gaza, there has been a monthslong conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border between Israel and Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist militant group supported by Iran in southern Lebanon. The near-daily attacks on both sides of the border have resulted in entire communities being displaced and thousands of buildings damaged, according to satellite photos, radar imagery and military activity records cited in a BBC analysis.
In July, the Israel Defense Forces announced that plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group would broaden its attacks to more Israeli towns.
Nicole VanDyke is a reporter for The Christian Post.
