Israeli Man Whose Hand Was Cut Off in Iran Goes Viral For His Testimony: ‘JESUS Saved Me From Death’

In Thran, I was captured because I was an Israeli and they planned to publicly execute me.

Then I called on Jesus and he res.

>> That was me.

My name is Daniel Bruner, an Israeli man whose left hand was cut off in Isvahan, Iran after Israel attacked the country in 2025.

I was just sitting in my apartment in Tel Aviv on the morning of February the 28th, 2026 when the news broke across every channel.

Ali Kamina was dead.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran had been killed in an Israeli American air strike that destroyed his compound in Thran.

The death of Kaman reminded me of another death that had changed my life forever.

In June 2025, Major General Hussein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in an Israeli air strike.

That death had triggered a chain of events that nearly ended my life.

That death had cost me my left hand.

Um, that death had put me in a prison cell where I thought I would breathe my last breath.

Now here I was almost a year later watching another powerful Iranian leader fall.

The regime that had tortured me was crumbling.

The men who had ordered my hand to be cut off were dying one by one.

God was moving in ways I could not have imagined when I’d lay bleeding on that cold prison floor.

I looked down at the stump where my left hand used to be.

The scars had healed, but the memories never would.

I had paid a price for my faith that few people would ever understand.

But I had also witnessed a miracle that proved to me beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ is alive and he saves.

This is my story.

I am telling it now because I believe the world needs to hear it.

I am telling it now because the God who rescued me deserves all the glory.

I was born in Hifur, Israel in 1979 to an Israeli father named Ysef Bruner and a Swiss mother named Margaret Bruner.

My father was a construction engineer who had met my mother while working on a project in Zurich in the mid 1970s.

They fell in love and got married in Switzerland before moving to Israel where I was born.

My childhood was split between two worlds.

We lived in Israel but visited Switzerland every summer to see my mother’s family in Lucern.

I grew up speaking Hebrew with my father and German with my mother.

I held two passports and two identities.

I was Israeli by blood, but Swiss by connection.

This dual identity would later become the key that opened doors no ordinary Israeli could ever walk through.

When I was 18 years old, my parents divorced and my mother returned to Switzerland.

I chose to go with her.

I lived in Zurich for the next 10 years, working various jobs and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

It was during those years in Switzerland that I encountered Jesus Christ for the first time.

A colleague at work invited me to a small church in the Vidicon district of Zurich.

I went out of curiosity and left with my life forever changed.

The pastor spoke about a God who loved me so much that he sent his son to die for my sins.

I had grown up in a secular Israeli household where religion was tradition but not relationship.

I had never heard anyone speak about God the way this pastor did.

That night I gave my life to Jesus and everything changed.

My faith grew rapidly in those early years.

I devoured the Bible like a hungry man eating bread.

I joined Bible studies and prayer groups.

Yet, I volunteered at the church helping with whatever was needed.

But as my faith deepened, I began to feel a stirring in my heart that I could not ignore.

I kept reading about persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

I read about underground churches in Iran where believers met in secret and risked their lives to worship Jesus.

I read about Christians in Syria and Iraq who were being killed for their faith.

I read about secret believers in Saudi Arabia who had no one to disciple them or encourage them.

These stories broke my heart and lit a fire inside me that would not go out.

I began to ask God what he wanted me to do.

The answer came slowly but clearly.

He wanted me to go to these places.

He wanted me to serve these people.

He wanted me to use whatever resources I had to bring hope and help to the persecuted church.

Uh at first I thought this was impossible.

How could I, an ordinary man, enter some of the most dangerous countries on earth and help underground Christians? But then I remembered something.

I had a Swiss passport.

Switzerland was one of the few western nations that maintained diplomatic relations with almost every country in the Middle East.

Switzerland was valued for its neutrality and often acted as a mediator between hostile nations.

Countries like Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia had a soft spot for Swiss nationals because Switzerland posed no political threat.

My Swiss passport was not just a travel document.

It was a key that could open doors that were locked to everyone else.

I began my work slowly and carefully.

I started by connecting with organizations that supported persecuted Christians around the world.

I learned how underground churches operated in hostile nations.

I learned about the networks of believers who risked everything to follow Jesus in places where Christianity was forbidden.

I began raising funds from churches in Switzerland and other European countries.

I collected relief materials like Bibles, medicine, food, and clothing.

And then I began making trips.

My first mission was to northern Iraq where Christian communities had been devastated by years of war and persecution.

I traveled to Eril and connected with local pastors who were caring for displaced families.

I delivered funds and supplies and prayed with believers who had lost everything except their faith.

That first trip confirmed my calling.

I knew this was what God had created me to do.

And over the next several years, I expanded my work to Syria where I visited underground churches in Damascus and Aleppo.

I traveled to Saudi Arabia using business cover to meet with secret believers in Riyad and Jedha.

And eventually I began making trips to the most dangerous destination of all, Iran.

The Islamic Republic was the crown jewel of my mission field.

Millions of Iranians were secretly turning to Jesus despite the regime’s brutal persecution of converts.

Underground churches were exploding across the country, and they desperately needed support.

My Swiss passport allowed me to enter Iran legally as a tourist or businessman.

Once inside, I would connect with the trusted contacts who would lead me to the hidden believers.

I would deliver funds and supplies and encouragement and then I would leave before anyone suspected what I was really doing.

For years, this system worked perfectly.

I made over a dozen trips to Iran without incident.

I became comfortable, perhaps too comfortable.

I forgot that I was dancing on the edge of a blade.

And in June 2025, that blade finally cut me.

Iran was unlike any other country I had ever worked in.

The spiritual hunger there was overwhelming.

Millions of Iranians were disillusioned with the Islamic regime that had controlled their lives for decades.

They had been promised paradise but received only oppression.

They had been promised righteousness but witnessed only corruption.

The young generation especially was searching for something real, something true, something that the moolas and Ayatollas could never give them.

And they were finding it in Jesus Christ.

The underground church in Iran was not a small persecuted remnant hiding in corners.

It was a mighty river flowing beneath the surface of society.

Some estimates said there were over 1 million secret believers in the country.

Others said the number was even higher.

House churches met in apartments and basement across Tehran, Isvahan, Shiraz Mashad, and dozens of other cities.

Believers gathered in groups of five or 10 or 20 to worship and pray and study the Bible.

They knew that if they were caught, they could be arrested, tortured, or executed.

But they gathered anyway because the love of Jesus was stronger than the fear of death.

These were the people I had been called to serve.

These were the people I risked my life to reach.

My first trip to Iran was in 2018.

I flew from Zurich to Thran on a Swiss International Airlines flight that landed at Imam Kini International Airport late in the evening.

My heart was pounding as I walked through passport control.

I handed my Swiss passport to the officer behind the glass.

He looked at my face and then at the photograph.

He flipped through the pages, checking for stamps from Israel.

I had been careful to use only my Swiss passport for this trip and my Israeli passport had never touched Iranian soil.

The officer asked me the purpose of my visit.

I told him I was a businessman exploring import opportunities in the carpet and textile industry.

He stamped my passport and waved me through.

I collected my luggage and walked out into the warm Thran night.

I had just entered the Islamic Republic of Iran.

the enemy territory that my Israeli father had warned me about my entire life.

The nation that had sworn to wipe Israel off the map.

And I was there to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The weight of what I was doing pressed down on my chest.

But I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit even stronger.

I was exactly where God wanted me to be.

My contact in Thran was a man I will call brother Farid.

I cannot use his real name because he is still alive and still serving the underground church.

If the Iranian authorities ever discovered his identity, he would be arrested immediately and probably executed.

Brother Farid was a former Muslim who had encountered Jesus in a dream over 15 years ago.

In the dream, a man in white robes appeared to him and said, “Follow me.

” Uh he woke up not knowing what the dream meant but feeling an overwhelming desire to learn about this man in white.

He searched for answers and eventually connected with underground Christians who gave him a Bible.

He read the gospels and realized that the man in his dream was Jesus.

He surrendered his life to Christ and had been serving the underground church ever since.

When I arrived in Thran, Brother Farcid met me at a predetermined location near Tadrish Square in the northern part of the city.

He drove me through the crowded streets in an old Peugeot that blended in with thousands of other cars.

We did not speak much during the drive.

He was cautious and watchful, always checking the mirrors for anyone who might be following us.

Um, after nearly an hour of driving through the winding streets and narrow alleys, we arrived at a residential building in the Saddiera district.

This was where I would meet my first Iranian house church.

The apartment was small and modest with worn carpets on the floor and simple furniture pushed against the walls.

But when I walked through the door, I entered a place filled with the presence of God.

About 15 people were gathered in the living room sitting on cushions and chairs arranged in a circle.

There were young people and old people, men and women, students and professionals.

They looked at me with wide eyes full of curiosity and hope.

Brother Farid introduced me as a brother from Europe who had come to encourage them and bring gifts from the global church.

I opened my bag and distributed the items I had brought.

Small Bibles printed in Farsy, devotional booklets, cash that had been donated by churches in Switzerland and Germany, medicine for a sick elderly woman who could not afford treatment.

Each item was received with tears and gratitude.

One young woman held the Farsy Bible to her chest and wept.

She told me she had been sharing a single Bible with three other families because they could not obtain their own copies.

Now she had her own Bible for the first time in her life.

That moment alone made every risk worth taking.

We worshiped together that night in hushed voices.

They sang songs I did not understand, but the melody of praise was universal.

They raised their hands and closed their eyes and met with Jesus in that tiny apartment.

I watched them and my heart overflowed with emotion.

These people had everything to lose.

They could lose their jobs, their families, their freedom, their lives.

And yet they gathered to worship with joy that most Western Christians have never experienced.

After the worship, brother Farid asked me to share a word of encouragement.

I stood before them and opened my Bible to Hebrewsap 11.

I read about the heroes of faith who were tortured and imprisoned and killed for their belief in God.

I told them they were part of that same lineage.

I told them heaven was watching them and cheering them on.

I told them their faith was precious in the sight of God and that their sacrifices would never be forgotten.

When I finished speaking, the room was silent.

Then an old man in the corner began to clap.

Others joined him.

They were not applauding me.

They were applauding the God who had not forgotten them.

The God who had sent a stranger from across the world to remind them that they were not alone.

That first trip to Thran opened my eyes to the scale of what God was doing in Iran.

Over the following years, I returned again and again.

I developed a network of trusted contacts in multiple cities.

I traveled to Isvahan and connected with house churches in the Armenian quarter and beyond.

I visited Shiraz and met believers who gathered secretly near the ancient ruins of Persipolis.

I went to Mashad, the holiest city in Iran for Shia Muslims and found pockets of Christians worshshiping in the shadow of the Imam Resa shrine.

Every trip followed the same pattern.

I would enter Iran legally using my Swiss passport and a cover story about business or tourism.

When I would connect with local believers through predetermined meeting points and coded messages, I would deliver funds, supplies, and encouragement.

I would pray with them and worship with them and weep with them.

And then I would leave before anyone could suspect what I had really been doing.

The Iranian intelligence services were everywhere.

The IRGC had informants in every neighborhood.

The morality police watched for any sign of deviation from Islamic law.

But God protected me trip after trip.

I moved through the country like a ghost unseen by the authorities who would have arrested me in an instant if they knew who I really was.

Isvahan became my most frequent destination.

The city was ancient and beautiful with stunning mosques and bridges that spanned the Zion River.

But beneath its historic surface was a thriving underground church that had grown rapidly in recent years.

My main contact in Isan was a man I will call brother Cameron.

He was a former engineer who had lost his job after converting to Christianity.

His family had disowned him.

His wife had divorced him and taken their children.

He had lost everything for the sake of Jesus.

And yet he was one of the most joyful people I had ever met.

Brother Kamran coordinated the house churches in Isvahan and the surrounding region.

He knew which believers could be trusted and which ones were too new or too careless to be involved in sensitive operations.

He arranged safe houses where I could stay and planned the routes I would take through the city.

He was my guide, my protector, and my brother in Christ.

Over the years, we developed a deep bond built on shared faith and shared danger.

I trusted him with my life, and in June 2025, that trust would be put to the ultimate test.

By early 2025, I had made over a dozen trips to Iran without a single incident.

I had grown comfortable, perhaps too comfortable, with the rhythm of my missions.

I knew the risks intellectually, but I had never truly faced them.

Every trip had gone smoothly.

Every delivery had been successful.

Every departure had been uneventful.

I began to believe that God’s protection was guaranteed.

I began to believe that nothing could touch me.

But I had forgotten a fundamental truth of the Christian life.

Following Jesus does not mean you will be spared from suffering.

It means he will be with you through the suffering.

Um I was about to learn this lesson in the most painful way imaginable.

In May 2025, I received word from brother Cameron that the situation in Isvahan was becoming desperate.

The house churches were running low on Bibles and funds.

Several believers had been arrested in recent months and fear was spreading through the community.

They needed encouragement.

They needed supplies.

They needed to know that the global church had not forgotten them.

I began making plans for another trip to East Vahan.

I had no idea that this trip would be different from all the others.

I had no idea that war was about to erupt and that I would be caught in the middle of it.

I arrived in Thran on June 8th, 2025 on what I believed would be a routine mission.

The flight from Zurich landed at Imam Kmeni International Airport just before midnight.

I cleared passport control without any issues using the same cover story I had used many times before.

a Swiss businessman exploring trade opportunities in Persian carpets and handiccrafts.

The officer stamped my passport and welcomed me to the Islamic Republic.

I collected my luggage and walked through the arrivals hall into the humid night.

Everything seemed normal.

The streets were busy with taxes and cars.

The city hummed with its usual chaotic energy.

I had no idea that in less than a week this country would be plunged into war and my life would be changed forever.

I took a taxi to a small hotel in the central district where I had stayed on previous visits.

The room was simple but clean.

I locked the door and knelt beside the bed to pray.

I asked God to protect me and guide my steps.

Oh, I asked him to bless the believers I would be meeting.

I asked him to use me as his instrument to bring hope and encouragement.

Then I lay down and slept peacefully unaware of the storm that was gathering on the horizon.

The next morning I took a bus from Thran to Isvahan.

The journey took about 5 hours passing through dry landscapes and small towns along the way.

I watched the scenery through the dusty window and prayed silently for the people I would be meeting.

Brother Cameron had arranged for me to stay at a safe house in the Jula district which was the historic Armenian quarter of Isvahan.

This area had a long Christian history dating back centuries.

The Armenian churches were tolerated by the regime because they served ethnic Armenians who were considered a recognized religious minority.

Um but the underground house churches made up of Muslim converts were completely illegal.

These were the believers I had come to serve.

Brother Camran met me at the bus station and drove me to the safe house.

It was a modest apartment on the second floor of an old building near the Vank Cathedral.

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