RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/09/did-bidens-policy-to-isolate-israel-lead-to-hamas-deadly-attack/

“With our ally Israel at war today, we can only hope the conflict is brief and settled in Israel’s favor with minimal bloodshed. In the meantime, U.S. weakness and overtly anti-Israel policy is a main cause of this nightmare and is yet another reason for Americans to think seriously about how they vote in 2024.”

It’s a tragic fact that Hamas’ attack that killed hundreds last weekend was a deadly salvo against the very existence of the Jewish state of Israel. But it was also an attack on the West’s weaklings who have once again enabled terrorism. And, sadly, that includes the U.S.

It was no accident that Hamas used a “Festival for Peace” concert near Gaza as an offensive on the very existence of the multi-ethnic, democratic state of Israel. Those attending no doubt thought their good intentions and good wishes for peace would be a shield against such atrocities.

Sadly, terrorists saw this as vulnerability, and took advantage. But it wasn’t just the concert that tempted them.

No, it was weakness among the political left in Israel, which seems to believe that calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “fascist” and craven acquiescence to terrorists will buy peace, and also among leaders in Europe, who somehow imagine that terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza are the moral equivalents of Israel.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-an-iranian-war-gaza-israel-terrorism-massacre-kidnapping-military-4d6b2137?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

As Jews celebrated a festive holiday on Saturday, the Iranian-backed Palestinian militia Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza. Spreading out through Israeli towns, the terrorists went house to house gunning down innocent civilians, including hundreds of young revelers at an outdoor “peace” rave. They abducted scores of civilians—the precise count is as yet unknown—including women and children, as hostages; and chilling videos have surfaced of them desecrating bodies and parading captives through the streets of Gaza, as large crowds yell “God is great.”

It is a rampage of unspeakable cruelty, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It is also a security catastrophe of unprecedented proportions for Israel’s military and political class. Much time will be spent figuring out the causes and responsibility. For now, some broader observations:

First, call it the Iran-Gaza War. To be sure, Hamas bears responsibility, and any serious Israeli response will involve its total, unconditional defeat. But Hamas is an ally and instrument of Iran. An operation of such scale and complexity is unlike anything Hamas has previously attempted and strongly suggests significant Iranian involvement. Hamas has publicly thanked Iran for its support, and Iran’s supreme leader applauded the invasion.

In the north, Israel faces Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that has de facto control over much of Lebanon, with a vast arsenal of missiles aimed at Israeli cities. Iran is reportedly close to nuclear breakout. This is the war with Israel that it wants—on Israeli soil, through once-removed marauding militias. Tehran terrorizes much of the Middle East in this manner.

Any serious response must go through Tehran. If the U.S. and the international community are truly outraged by the scenes of senior citizens gunned down on the street and women and children abducted, they must not only refrain from limiting Israel’s operation in Gaza but resolve to oust the genocidal regime in Tehran. President Biden’s policy has been exactly the opposite. His administration has sought rapprochement with and even allegedly been manipulated by an Iranian influence operation. He has eased sanctions and in recent weeks gave the mullahs $6 billion for the release of American hostages.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-strikes-hamas-and-hezbollah-sites-hunts-intruders-in-the-south-f8f40203

TEL AVIV—Israeli troops engaged in fierce fighting into the early hours of Monday morning to regain control of swaths of the country’s south after Hamas militants flooded in from Gaza, with the military struggling to reseal the border to further incursions.

The last infiltrators from Gaza were being hunted down with the task expected to take at least a few more hours, military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said in a livestream on X, formerly known as Twitter, around 2 a.m. local time Monday.

Throughout Sunday, the Israeli government was still working to evacuate civilians from towns and villages near Gaza, densely populated Palestinian enclaves, and authorities worked to treat hundreds of wounded civilians, recover the bodies of the dead and try to determine how many Israelis were being held hostage.

The Israeli cabinet approved a declaration of war after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Saturday a call-up for hundreds of thousands of military reservists, saying in a televised address: “We are at war and we will win it.”

Iran-backed Hamas said it had been able to send additional men and weapons into Israel on Sunday and it launched a fresh barrage of missiles from Gaza.

Meanwhile, another Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah, fired mortar shells and a missile at Israeli targets from southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah attacks raised the specter of a second front opening in the conflict as Israel prepared for broader strikes on militant targets in Gaza. Hamas sought to sow more turmoil, calling for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to riot and confront Israeli soldiers there.

Late Sunday, Gaza militants fired another barrage of rockets, while Israel carried out airstrikes in the Palestinian territory. The Israeli military also said that one of its marine commando units had captured a Hamas deputy commander of the militant group’s naval force.

More than 700 Israelis have been confirmed dead, and 2,408 wounded, according to Israel’s Army Radio. At least 413 Palestinians have been killed and around 2,300 injured in Israeli counterstrikes on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378095

Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, spoke to Israel National News – Arutz Sheva on Sunday about the Hamas-launched war on Israel in which over 350 people have been murdered so far and stated that Russia’s hand can be seen in the attack in addition to the hand of Iran.

The attack began with a coordinated breach of the Gaza border fence at multiple locations accompanied by the firing of thousands of rockets into southern Israel, allowing squads of terrorists to penetrate into Israel and attack numerous communities and cities in southern Israel in the early morning. Israel was caught completely off-guard by the assault, representing a massive intelligence failure.

“I have no doubt that questions about this intelligence failure are being addressed now in the Israeli government,” Col. Kemp said of the failure to predict and stop the deadly Hamas onslaught. “I am sure there will be a full inquiry when the current situation is stabilized. Until then we can only speculate. This attack has been called Israel’s 9/11 by some people, or Israel’s Pearl Harbor, both of which were also accompanied by tragic intelligence failure.”

He stated that Iran and Russia were behind the attack which was, according to him, “too complex for Gaza terrorists to pull off on their own.”