WATCH: Joel Rosenberg on latest developments with Iran war and how Christians can pray as Israel fights for its survival

In this urgent update from ALL ISRAEL NEWS, Editor-in-Chief Joel C. Rosenberg offers a critical overview of the dangerous and escalating threats facing Israel from Iran. As tensions intensify and the risk of all-out war increases, believers around the world are being called to intercede for Israel's peace, security and leadership.

Click on the video to watch or read the transcript below, lightly edited for clarity.

Christians all over the United States, Canada and around the world are asking, 'How can we be praying specifically in this raging missile war between Israel and Iran?'

This is the most defining...this is the defining war of Israel in the 21st century. It's the most consequential war since the War of Independence when Israel was prophetically reborn on May 14th, 1948, but was attacked on May 15th immediately by seven Arab countries trying to wipe us off the planet.

We are now locked in a winner-take-all battle with the Iranian regime, with the Islamic Republic of Iran, that has threatened continuously to wipe Israel off the map. So, how's the war going and how can we be praying?

Hi, this is Joel Rosenberg, editor-in-chief of ALL ISRAEL NEWS and ALL ARAB NEWS and co-founder of The Joshua Fund.

I'm in Jerusalem and it has been a brutal week so far – just unbelievable, intense fighting, missiles, battles between Israel and Iran. So, I want to get into a few minutes of how Christians can pray.

Let me just give you a few updates, okay?

Israel has now destroyed, according to Israeli military spokesman, 40% of Iran's ballistic missile stockpiles in Iran. Okay – 40%. Now, we believe that Iran started the war with about 2,000 ballistic missiles. So 40 % would be 800 of these missiles. Now, Iran has fired 400 missiles at Israel so far in this past week. And so, that's a total of 1,200 missiles out of the stockpiles of Iran having 2,000. That's good – and I would add that only 20 ballistic missiles have actually penetrated through Israel's multi-layered missile defense system. However, these are big missiles.

I'll give you one example. One ballistic missile – coming through and getting past Israel's missile defense system –hit in a community just south of Tel Aviv in a community called Bat Yam. There's a wonderful congregation in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. That one missile destroyed an entire city block of almost 20 apartments, leaving about 800 people homeless. We had about 24 Israelis who've been killed so far, hundreds wounded, and many came from that very neighborhood.

What we're talking about is these missiles from Iran are much larger and they're much more powerful than the rockets that were fired from Gaza. The rockets were like 15,000 to 20,000 of them eventually, between coming from Gaza and coming from Lebanon. So the volume was more, but the size of those rockets and their explosive impact was less. So I just want to put that into perspective.

Now the challenge is – a highly classified number – how many missile interceptors does Israel have? So, the challenge is there's still about 800 missiles, plus suicide drones, that Iran has. It’s a race for Israel to destroy all of the launchers and all the stockpiles of these missiles and drones before we run out of the ability to intercept them in mid-air.

• That's the first thing I want you to pray for. Yes, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but what are the specific things? So, I think we'd say the first thing is that Israel can destroy Iran's ballistic missile, cruise missile and suicide drone stockpiles before Israel runs out of missile interceptors. That's a really big deal.

• The second thing I would ask you to be praying for is, of course, for total destruction of Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. We understand now from Israeli intelligence and also from the UN, from the IAEA, (International Atomic Energy Agency) that Iran has enough enriched uranium to build 10 nuclear, fully operational nuclear bombs.

To be clear, that enriched uranium is at 60% purity. To run a civilian peaceful nuclear reactor takes about 3.65%. So Iran has violated the law, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – and lots of UN resolutions and warnings by Israeli leaders, American leaders, and others – don't enrich to 60%, but that's what they've done. Now, they have enough uranium at 60% that when they would purify that down to military grade, bomb grade, warhead grade, that's about 90 to 93% purity they need.

But the technological challenge of enriching from 3.65% to 60%, that's the big technological scientific hurdle. Once you get to 60%, it's not that difficult, experts tell us, to get from 60% to 90% to 93%. If Iran were to take the 60% enriched uranium that they have today, they could within a week produce enough military grade, bomb grade, warhead grade, uranium to create the first warhead. And in three weeks, they could have 10 fully operational nuclear warhead-grade uranium to build those bombs.

That's why Israel attacks now with the full support of President Trump and his administration and for which we're very, very grateful for.

I would say the next thing to pray for is the complete destruction of all of those facilities. Several of those facilities, particularly a facility in a place called Fordow – it's out in a remote desert mountainous section – the nuclear facility is deep deep underground in a mountain and it's very very hard. Now the United States military, the Air Force could, using B-2 stealth bombers, drop multiple, what are called "bunker buster bombs," 30,000 pound bombs, and you fire one, and then immediately you fire the second to go right behind it, and that could, by itself, destroy Fordow.

But Israel does not have bunker buster bombs so far as we're aware. So, the question is whether President Trump decides that he's going to finish the job and and win this war by using the American military to use bunker buster bombs to destroy all these facilities.

Right now, without bunker buster bombs, Israel is having to send wave after wave of fighter jets to use much smaller missiles, and bombs to just keep hitting, hitting, hitting, hitting to degrade these underground facilities, these hardened facilities. And Israel's doing it, and Israel can continue to do it, but please pray that whichever way – either by Israel doing it alone or if the United States wants to come and help, if President Trump decides to come and help – that all these facilities would be destroyed. And there are many other nuclear research, bomb-making research facilities that are scattered around the country, including 10 in the confines of the capital city of Iran: Tehran.

That's why President Trump and the Israeli military have been warning and encouraging Iranians to leave Tehran, leave the capital, because Israel has already started bombing those facilities, among others: the defense ministry, the intelligence ministry, the head of the Air Force, headquarters and so forth.

We need to pray that the entire nuclear weapons infrastructure and industry within Iran is completely destroyed. That's prayer request No. 2.

• Pray for the protection of Israelis from these missiles – that God would just supernaturally protect Israel from 800 missiles raining down on top of us and us running out of missile interceptors.

• Pray for the wisdom of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his military leaders as they navigate the most complex war that Israel has ever. Remember, we're only 10 million people in a country the size of New Jersey. Iran is 100 million people and is 80 times larger than the landmass of Israel.

So, this is a huge war far away from us, but it's an existential war – it's a war of survival.

• The next prayer request is to pray for President Trump and his senior leadership: He's got voices in his ear that are telling him don't do this – don't get involved. Israel is not actually asking formally for the United States to bomb these facilities or to send American Soldiers airmen, servicemen into harm's way.

Israel has a principle that we defend ourselves by ourselves. Though we need the political support, the diplomatic support, the economic support and of course we buy weapons from the United States and we are deeply grateful. and we need a resupply of all these things and we need the American government to support us and President Trump is, but there are people that telling him don't get involved, don't even help They’re saying, Israel is on its own, they've started some war.

No, we haven't started a war. Iran's been attacking us since 1979. Actually, Iran's been attacking America since 1979, taking over the U.S. embassy in November of 1979 and holding Americans hostage for 444 days. It was the Iranian regime that directed Hezbollah, the terrorist group in Lebanon, to attack the U.S. Marines barracks in 1983, killing 241 U.S. Marines and wounding hundreds of others. It's the Iranians who bombed the U.S. servicemen in the Khobar Towers residential complex where U.S. military and civilians were living – killing 19 Americans in 1996 and wounding hundreds of others. And so on, so much forth.

There are 700,000 Americans that live in Israel right now. I'm a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, so is Lynn and so are our kids – so we're among that 70 ,000. But there are also Americans working at the U.S. Embassy and U.S. businesses here and those working in Christian organizations and Jewish organizations. There are 700,000 Americans living in Israel and we are all under attack by Iran. And we’ve been attacked by Iran's terror proxies – their subsidiaries, their franchises – since October 7th. So, this idea that it's not America first to come stand with Israel in this fight. No, Americans themselves are being attacked.

• Please pray for the protection of all Israelis, including Americans, and that President Trump and his team would have wisdom and the president would keep standing with us. He's doing a great job. I'm very grateful. Whatever else you may think of him, I'm just telling you he has been the most pro-Israel president in history, but he's not doing it just for us.

Yes, Israel's a faithful – the most faithful – ally of the United States, in my view, but he's doing this for American national security interests because remember, when Iran's leaders say, “Death to Israel,” they're actually saying “death to America” first. Israel's just the little Satan in their apocalyptic, genocidal, murderous end times theology. Israel's the little Satan. The United States is the great Satan. The United States is what Iran's regime really wants to destroy.

[video clip] U.S. President Donald Trump: "It will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and we won't be using a man like Secretary Kerry that has absolutely no concept of negotiation, who's made a horrible and laughable deal, who's just being tapped along as they make weapons right now."

• So we have to understand that. Let's pray for President Trump and his team, the Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and, of course, our wonderful local ambassador here, who's doing an amazing job – the U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. So, be praying for all of them.

• Let's pray for the healing and the recovery of Israelis who've been badly wounded and the families of those who've been killed here over the course of the last 21 months of this war – and the last week of this missile war with Iran.

• Please pray for all the Israeli hostages to be released or rescued from Gaza and that we could finish off and defeat Hamas in Gaza once and for all.

And finally spiritually, pray for the Church – the congregation of believers here in Israel – to be strong, to be healthy, to be bold. We're all exhausted because the missile sirens are going off all through the night and we have to run to bomb shelters.

And it is exhausting because you need to get up and work the next day and it is just wearing us down.

We're glad to be on offense. We know we're winning and we're grateful, but it is taking a toll, it is painful, it is messy.

• So please keep praying for all Israelis, particularly for the Church to be strong, to be healthy, to be bold, to be sharing the good news – the hope that people can find: forgiveness of their sins, eternal life and a peace that passes all understanding in the midst of this darkness right now. Those benefits are only available to those who become personally adopted into God's family through repentance and faith in the Messiah, in Jesus the Messiah, the crucified and risen Messiah.

So, that's a message that a lot of Israelis have not wanted to hear historically, but they're listening more than ever.

• Please pray the church would be bold and that the people here in Israel – both Israelis and Palestinians – would have ears to hear.

• Please pray for the Palestinian Church to be bold in preaching in Arabic – the hope of the gospel, the hope of Messiah – to the Palestinian people in Gaza and in the West Bank.

• Finally, I would ask you to pray for a great spiritual awakening, not just that the seeds of the gospel would be planted, but that more and more Israelis and Palestinians would come to faith – true saving faith in Jesus, in Yeshua, the Messiah.

• All right, one more – and that is the liberation of Iran, because the military and nuclear threat from Iran is being destroyed. It may take several more weeks to get to full destruction, but it's being destroyed.

And the question is, is it possible that the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could be assassinated, could be killed, could have a stroke, could have a heart attack, could die, or could be overthrown? or Could his regime be overthrown? The fall of the regime in Iran would be a moment of great success and great victory for which Evangelicals should be praying for without ceasing.

And then the question is, could that wicked regime be replaced by a moderate, benign, friendly pro-American, pro-Israel government led by someone who I've actually met and spent time with and interviewed for ALL ISRAEL NEWS and for my program on TBN, THE ROSENBERG REPORT – that would be the exiled crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who wants to make peace with Israel and he wants to sign a document – an agreement with Israel called the Cyrus Accords.

So, I'm praying for that and I would love to get on a plane with the Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, and fly into a liberated Iran and report to you from there.

Those are the challenges.

Those are the prayer requests.

Please keep praying for all these things, and please share this on your social media with others so they know how to pray as well.

From Jerusalem, in the midst of this intense missile war, a war for Israel's survival. This is Joel Rosenberg for ALL ISRAEL NEWS God bless you.