{"id":8131,"date":"2023-10-11T05:13:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T16:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=8131"},"modified":"2023-10-11T05:13:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T16:13:17","slug":"church-group-of-54-new-zealanders-stranded-in-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=8131","title":{"rendered":"Church group of 54 New Zealanders stranded in Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tour group of 54 New Zealanders are stranded in Jerusalem as the worst violence in decades rocks Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The group who come from a variety of churches in New Zealand came on a pilgrimage to tour Israel on 3 October and were scheduled to depart on 12 October, but Turkish Airlines has cancelled their flight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With each day that the war has been gone on our situation has been increasingly precarious,&#8221; tour group member Pesi Sikalu told\u00a0<em>Checkpoint<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"block-item\">\n<div class=\"c-play-controller c-play-controller--full-width u-blocklink\" data-uuid=\"8678770f-06a4-4681-8f20-952143de9896\"><a class=\"c-play-controller__play faux-link faux-link--not-visited\" title=\"Listen to Church group of 54 New Zealanders stranded in Jerusalem\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/national\/programmes\/checkpoint\/audio\/2018910537\/church-group-of-54-new-zealanders-stranded-in-jerusalem\" data-player=\"55X2018910537\"><span class=\"c-play-controller__title\">\u00a0&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to stay strong&#8221; &#8211;\u00a0Pesi Sikalu\u00a0<span class=\"c-play-controller__duration\"><span class=\"hide\">duration<\/span>5<span aria-hidden=\"true\">\u2032\u2009<\/span><span class=\"acc-visuallyhidden\">:<\/span>16<span aria-hidden=\"true\">\u2033<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-play-controller__playlist\"><a class=\"link--not-visited\" title=\"Playlist Church group of 54 New Zealanders stranded in Jerusalem\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/national\/programmes\/checkpoint\/audio\/2018910537\/church-group-of-54-new-zealanders-stranded-in-jerusalem\" data-playlist=\"55X2018910537\"><span class=\"u-hidden@xsmall\">Add to playlist<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"c-play-controller__download\"><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"u-blocklink__overlay-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/national\/programmes\/checkpoint\/audio\/2018910537\/church-group-of-54-new-zealanders-stranded-in-jerusalem\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-player=\"55X2018910537\">\u00a0&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to stay strong&#8221; &#8211;\u00a0Pesi Sikalu<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;We really are just trying to get home to our families as soon as we can.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just difficult because we are a large group.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The group of New Zealand citizens and residents carry NZ, Tongan and Australian passports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The war is getting worse by the day and we need to get the government&#8217;s attention to get us back home to NZ soil. We refuse to be among the injured or the death tolls during this devastating war,&#8221; Sikalu said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re trying to stay strong,&#8221; with their families back home all very concerned, she told\u00a0<em>Checkpoint<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>They have been in contact with the High Commission and embassies and are waiting for aid. Flights are being cancelled to and from Israel during the escalating violence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Trying our best just to get out of here, honestly,&#8221; Sikalu said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think our main concern is being stuck here. I think today is probably our last hope to get out of here. I think anything after today everything will be really difficult.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tour group of 54 New Zealanders are stranded in Jerusalem as the worst violence in decades rocks Israel. The group who come from a variety of churches in New Zealand came on a pilgrimage to tour Israel on 3 October and were scheduled to depart on 12 October, but Turkish Airlines has cancelled their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8133,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8131\/revisions\/8133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}