The psalmist tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. After the terrible escalation of violence since 7 October, Christians will have been extending their prayers to all of what we still call the Holy Land. On that day, Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,400 Jews, including the very young and very old, and took a number of others hostage – among them a grandmother who had survived the Holocaust. Indeed, not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in a single day. The atrocities Hamas committed during the attacks included rape and the defilement of dead bodies. They recalled, in their savagery, the brutalities of IS in Iraq and Syria. Whatever the sins of the Netanyahu government – and they are real – there can be no justification, no exculpation of what happened. The voice of Rachel was again heard crying for her children, and she would not be comforted.