Members of Suncoast Church and GT Church Assembly of God who have been trapped in Israel since the war in Iran started were relocated to safety via bus thanks to the veteran-led organization. <\/p>\n
These were the first groups evacuated from Israel by Grey Bull on Tuesday, though few details are available about the mission, the nonprofit told Patch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re safe. We were successfully extracted out of Tiberias, out of Israel,\u201d GT Church Pastor Heath Rizaldo Panganiban said in a video shared to social media early Wednesday morning. \u201cCan\u2019t share too many details but we\u2019re not in Israel right now. We crossed the border. We\u2019re inching our way back home. It\u2019s gonna be a process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just minutes before the group left where they were staying, Rizaldo Panganiban saw \u201ctwo rockets hitting really close to where we were,\u201d he said in the video. <\/p>\n
The night before, he saw rockets being shot over their hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very interesting time to be here,\u201d he said, adding. \u201cWe\u2019re just tired. We\u2019re hoping to be home soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a separate video, posted from a bus, Suncoast Church Pastor Tim Suddreth said in a video posted Tuesday, \u201cWe are out of Israel officially. We are out of the active warzone. We\u2019re in friendly territory.”<\/p>\n
Grey Bull quickly launched Operation: Chess Master to rescue and evacuate Americans trapped throughout the Middle East after the military campaign in Iran started<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire region is being held at risk. Rescue requests are pouring in from Americans and allied nationals across the region as commercial routes are shut down and exit options are complex and dangerous,\u201d the nonprofit said in a news release. <\/p>\n
The donor-funded organization\u2019s elite team of U.S. Special Operations and Intelligence Community veterans are already in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and posted in surrounding countries, ready to conduct rescue missions any way they can.<\/p>\n
Suddreth\u2019s wife, Janet Suddreth, said in the video he posted, that Grey Bull was the only entity to step up as they tried to leave Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the only ones that have made this possible. It\u2019s something you don\u2019t know you appreciate until you need it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of Suncoast Church and GT Church Assembly of God who have been trapped in Israel since the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-177916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}