“WATCH ISRAEL”
By HEART staff
The prophecy given at the beginning of this paper includes the exhortation to “Watch Israel”.
This is in line with a well-known prophecy given by Bible teacher Lance Lambert in 1986, in which God spoke of his undying love for his “kith and kin”.
Referring to Romans 9-11, he reminded the Church that Israel’s hardening of heart was in order to bring salvation to the gentiles, but he had not given up his people.
“Yet I have surrendered them to sorrow, to anguish of heart and to continuous suffering. But I have never given them up. In all their afflictions I was afflicted, though I neither delivered nor saved them from death. “Nevertheless I have been present; I the King of Israel, I have been present, although unnoticed and unregarded, in all their sufferings. There was no gas chamber, no massacre in which I was not present.”
“Bring them home”
Michael Levy, the brother of hostage Or Levy, has met with heads of state and even the Pope in his efforts to bring his brother home. Or had to watch his wife being murdered at the Nova Festival on 7 October, before he was dragged off to Gaza.
Efforts are still underway to reach an agreement for the release of hostages and a ceasefire, but Hamas cannot guarantee how many of the 33 female soldiers, sick and elderly set to be released out of the 134 left, are still alive.
A new Direct Polls Institute poll of the Israeli public indicates that 72% of IDF reservists, who have fought in Gaza, oppose a hostage deal on Hamas’ terms, Moreover, 90% of the same reservists oppose providing humanitarian aid to Gaza until Hamas surrenders.
Iran’s ‘light show’
Bible-believing Christians have long ‘watched out’ for Israel in prayer, and on the night of 13-14 April Christians worldwide stayed up late praying as Iran launched its ‘revenge’ for the alleged Israeli assassination of the Iranian general who planned the 7 October massacres.
It was hailed as a miracle of God’s protection from the mullahs’ onslaught of 350 missiles (30-50 cruise, 110-120 balltistic) and kamikaze drones, and around 40 missiles from Lebanon, as well as from Iraq and Houthi-controlled Yemen. An estimated 95-99% of the missiles were intercepted, firstly by Israel’s air force, along with the US, UK, and French forces, aided by intelligence data supplied by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before they reached Israel, then by the IDF’s multi-layer missile defence systems. At a rough cost of $1billion, it was seen as a technological triumph, although a rabbi said that the results – with, sadly, one little girl being injured and slight damage done to an airbase – could only be seen as the hand of God.
However, Dr Yigal Carmon, Founder and President of the highly respected Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) claimed that the attack was actually carefully co-ordinated by the US over Israel’s head:
It was hailed as a miracle of God’s protection from the mullahs’ onslaught
“America co-ordinated the attack with Iran so that no one would be physically injured or killed. This was thanks to the highly skilled American, Israeli, British, and Jordanian air defences. This coordination with Iran that guarantees no casualties, no injuries, was made over Israel’s head.”
“Israel’s Air Force, like those of the USA, UK, and Jordan, did a great job. They had full information about the missiles that were coming. Israel got the information from the Americans, who got the information about the “what, where, and when” of the air strikes from the Iranians, enabling an unfathomable 99% missile defence rate.”
Carmon warns that Israel’s deterrence was “struck down” by the US’s pre-co-ordination with Iran. “The worst for Israel would be to believe that the results of this night are all that Iran can achieve. They can do far more.”
And Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow, agreed:
“This was the ‘attack’ prearranged for show between Iran and the Biden administration through backchannels. It’s an attack that allows Iran to show off that it can reach Israel… while not inflicting any real damage. Iran did burn up some resources doing this, but apart from the morale boost of doing it, it set out to test USA and Israeli defences. And the defences did what they were supposed to…had Iran actually been trying to launch a serious attack, it would have used its Hezbollah, Houthi, Iraqi and whatever is left of its Hamas proxies to saturate local air defences.”
Greenfield points out that the 7 October attack was planned by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general who was killed in an alleged Israeli strike in Damascus on 1 April. He had carefully analysed Israel’s border and air defences and exploited its weaknesses.
Thus a picture of double dealing emerges, with the US playing a dubious role. Greenfield alleges that “Iran will do things beyond this light show, which was largely meant to reassure the Biden administration that its ‘diplomatic tools’ have successfully solved the problem.” He claims that Iran is pretending to be co-operating with the US behind the scenes while it continues its nuclear weapons programme.
[Source: Gatestone Institute,16 April]
Why is Rafah a red line?
Western governments were urging the Israelis not to invade Rafah, the city on the Gaza-Egypt border, for weeks beforehand. Militarily, it was essential for the IDF to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions sheltering in tunnels under the city.
Officially, the warnings were to protect civilians.
Indeed, the Washington Post claimed that President Biden’s administration had offered “sensitive intelligence” concerning the whereabouts of Ham0as leaders and hidden tunnels in Gaza in exchange for Israel holding back from launching a major incursion into Rafah.
Israel had reportedly promised not to begin any large-scale operation in Rafah until it had evacuated at least 800,000 of the estimated one million evacuees, which had been achieved by mid-May, contrary to the White House’s estimation of several months.
However, Bible teacher and commentator Amir Tsarfati believes that the US and Egypt are fearful of Hamas’s huge tunnel system between Gaza and Egypt being exposed. It is claimed that Egyptian President Al Sisi allowed the Muslim extremists in Egypt to smuggle weapons to Hamas in return for peace within Egypt itself. Moreover, the US was fully aware of this behaviour by its ally. Hence Egypt’s threats that its peace treaty with Israel would be in jeopardy if Israel invaded Rafah.
Egypt has also been condemned for displacing thousands of Palestinians from Rafah after demolishing their homes and blocking aid to the Palestinians. Journalist Bassam Tawil, writing for the Gatestone Institute (14 May), mocks Egypt for “piously” deciding to join the South African case against Israel [for genocide] at the International Court of Justice (ICC).
Meanwhile a group of US Republican senators wrote an open letter to the ICC, warning that they would use the law at their disposal to punish the ICC if it pursued Israel over genocide claims.
Sharp fall in Gaza casualties
The demonstrations and shrill accusations of genocide against Israel were founded on false figures released by the Hamas-run Health ministry.
In early May Hamas finally admitted it could not verify as many as 10,000 of the claimed 34,000 deaths. Gaza’s Health Ministry has also acknowledged that at least 24,000 of their unverifiable total were “martyrs”: in other words, terrorist combatants.
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) lowered its child fatality figure from more than 14,500 deaths on 6 May to 7,797 on 8 May. OCHA also lowered its figure for women’s fatalities from over 9,500 to 4,959 deaths.
Meanwhile a group of former US generals signed an open letter stating that Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas did not contravene international law and commended their careful protection of civilians.
Kneeling before the Islamic god
With some of the US student protesters converting to Islam, seen here kneeling before the Islamic god, an Iranian woman who had moved to Germany took to Twitter to voice her alarm:
“People cannot even imagine how triggering it is for us to see the unholy unity of Islamists and radical leftists…None of you [women] have read the “Al Nisa” surah, where it is clearly stated that men literally own you and have the right to hit you if you refuse to have sex with them…What you are standing up for today is anything but being “woke” and progressive…fighting Jewish students, attacking them, not understanding the fact that the hostages have to be brought back home and no peace can exist before that happens is outright wrong.”
She adds: “People who truly advocate about and fight for human rights are NOT selective with the causes they care about. Caring about human rights is one thing, standing up behind Islamists, waving Hezbollah and Hamas flags and saying slogans that are against Jews and outright radical are not it.”
[Source: Tired Kitten on X]
Yom Hazikaron
As Israel and Jewish communities marked the annual Memorial Day on 12-13 May, there was extra poignancy as Israel was seven months into its war on terrorist group Hamas.
By 13 May, 271 IDF service personnel had been killed in Gaza (plus a further 17 on the Israel-Lebanon border, six in Judea and Samaria, and 11 elsewhere in Israel), and many thousands were wounded – several hundred of them severely.
One Christian invited to a comemoration at a Sussex synagogue, said, “Although we’d been invited to join the service, we almost felt we were intruding, because I’ve never seen so much hurt and pain in a room”.
UNWRA’s complicity
Contrary to the United Nations finding no evidence linking UNRWA to Hamas, the IDF found a Hamas command centre inside the UNRWA headquarters in Central Gaza. Meantime, Hamas related armed gangs have stolen more than $70 million (£56 million) from the Bank of Palestine in Gaza.
UN votes to recognise ‘Palestine’
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) voted on 10 May to provide “additional rights and privileges of participation of the State of Palestine.”
The United Arab Emirates-sponsored resolution, which passed with 143 in favour, nine against, and 25 abstentions, also expressed the body’s opinion that the “State of Palestine” meets the UN parameters for membership.
Israel blasted the UNGA vote with Foreign Minister Israel Katz arguing that it was a “prize for Hamas.”
Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, vehemently criticised the assembly for its decision to allow the PA to expand its rights and privileges in the international organisation; and in a symbolic gesture during his speech, Erdan shredded a copy of the UN Charter, which stipulates that candidates for UN membership must be “peace-loving states.”
In addition to the US and Israel, Argentina, Chechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Papua New Guinea voted against the resolution. The United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Ukraine were among the notable abstentions.
Hezbollah war looms
In May, as the IDF continued its quest for the missing hostages in the Rafah tunnels, the Iran-backed Hezbollah forces stepped up their bombardment of northern Israel.
The Lebanese terrorist militia launched over 200 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel in just 24 hours on 16 May.
Bible teacher Amir Tsarfati reports that the government had promised to return the residents of northern Israel to their homes before the start of the school year in September. But, “For that to happen, Israel would need to launch a war against Hezbollah starting now.”
Terrorists mourn Iranian president’s death
Hamas was among the first to express its sorrow over the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on 19 May, along with the Taliban. Venezuela’s President Maduro also sent his condolences.
Some Iranians, however, openly rejoiced over the hardline cleric’s helicopter crash, letting off fireworks. Women with uncovered heads were seen waving their former national flag and Israel’s flag. Raisi, dubbed the ‘butcher of Tehran’, had overseen a harsh crackdown through his ‘morality police’ on women who refused to wear the hijab. After the murder of one young woman in police detention, protests erupted across the country, which were brutally put down by armed police, while men who had supported the women’s demonstrations were summarily tried and executed.