"MIRACLE OF GOD"
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Mariam Hamed, 80, who lost three members of her family in an Israeli warplane missile attack

The bipartisan pro-Israel lobby has, in recent years, been further strengthened by the fervour of millions of right-wing evangelical Christians, at least some of whom believe that the Middle East conflict is the fulfilment of the Bible's prophecy of Armageddon.

Last month the Reverend John Hagee, a Pentecostal television evangelist from Texas, convened a meeting in Washington of 3,500 members of Christians Unified for Israel. The organisation is dedicated to building support for Israel, even in states where there are few Jewish voters.

A Lebanese girl who was wounded and burned by an Israeli attack rests in a Tyre hospital in south Lebanon

Mr Hagee called the Israeli attacks on Lebanon a "miracle of God" and suggested that a ceasefire would violate "God's foreign policy statement" towards Jews. The evangelist is a leading figure in the so-called Christian-Zionist movement, rooted in a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which predicts a final battle between good and evil in Israel, where two billion people will die before Christ's return ushers in a 1,000-year period of grace.

"The end of the world as we know it is rapidly approaching . . . Rejoice and be exceeding glad -- the best is yet to be," Mr Hagee has written in a book that has sold 700,000 copies.

Brothers Nabil Alaa al-Din, left, Ramzi, center, and Ali, right