The Israelites of the New Universal Pact (Misión Israelita del Nuevo Pacto Universal) is a South American religious sect, mostly concentrated in Peru. The evangelical Christian sect was founded in the Junin province of Peru in 1960 by Ezequiel Ataucusi Gamonal, following a break with the Seventh Day Adventist Church of which he and his followers had been members.[1] Gamonal's son Jonas runs the group in 2023.[2]
The end-times sect, which postulates Peru as a promised land, and its founder as the Messiah, has gained a large following among indigenous people of the Peruvian jungle.
The group has been linked to deforestation and drug-trafficking in the past.[3]
The group also runs its own political party, the Agricultural People's Front of Peru, which won the second largest share of the quick count vote in the 2020 elections.[4]