Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday prayed at the Western Wall, Judaism’s second-holiest site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, giving thanks for the United States joining the war against Iran.
Netanyahu visited the site alongside Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Places, Mordechai “Suli” Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, and his wife Sara, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The premier and his wife offered a prayer for the safety of Israeli security forces, as well as the remaining 50 hostages held captive by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip for more than 600 days.
The prime minister also recited a special prayer for U.S. President Donald Trump, known in Hebrew as Hanoten teshuah (“He who grants deliverance”), asking that God bless him for standing with the Jewish nation and against evil, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported.
Hours before the Israel Defense Forces launched its opening strike against Iran’s nuclear program on June 13, Netanyahu visited the Western Wall alongside Argentine President Javier Milei.
The premier during the visit placed a note in the wall with a verse from the book of Numbers (23:24): “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion,” his office said.
The IDF’s aerial assault on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has been named “Operation Rising Lion,” after the biblical prophecy.