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To Our WindowViewers

The following message is one in a series of reports that we will mirror here at WindowView.

Mr. Dolan's perspective is that of a professional reporter who is located in the Middle East. For those of us who neither live there nor understand a biblical perspective for the timeline rooted in events related to Israel, then this report begins to let us experience the global and biblical relevance for what comes out of the Middle East.

From the biblical perspective we can all pray for peace, but we are also mindful of Scripture that tells us at some point we will see what looks like "peace, peace," but then a series of very serious events are to follow. The conflict of this day is merely the tip of an iceberg ... there is so much more to all this that is below the water line. Keep a watch on events, learn of their future implications, look through the window, and certainly pray for peace!

Dr. Peterson

Director, WindowView.org

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WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2006 2:30 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Fierce ground clashes between Israeli and Hizbullah forces have broken out for the first time in the week long conflict, occurring just north of the Israeli Galilee town of Safed near Moshav Avivim. There are unconfirmed reports at this hour of two Israeli army deaths in the intense fighting, with others wounded. This came after a small IDF ground force crossed the international border earlier in the day to directly confront nearby Hizbullah fighters. As I stated yesterday, some sort of cross-border operation seemed imminent as more reserve units were being called up to free regular soldiers for such operations. A much larger operation to clear Hizbullah fighters from the border zone is expected by many analysts in the coming days.

Further west, another Hizbullah rocket barrage struck the port city of Haifa and other areas this morning, directly hitting one apartment building and sending a huge plume of gray smoke over Israel’s third largest city. However the attack caused no deaths since building residents had either already fled the city or had rushed to nearby bomb shelters. Two people were lightly wounded from shrapnel elsewhere as dozens of rockets came crashing down. Around 1,000 Hizbullah rockets have struck Israeli territory in the last week—the largest barrage upon Israeli population centers since the 1967 Six Day war.

Meanwhile at a special security cabinet meeting in Jerusalem this morning, senior government ministers decided to continue on with the military campaign until two captured Israeli soldiers are released and the Iranian and Syrian backed Shiite group stops firing rockets into Israel. This was the official statement issued after the cabinet session: "The intensive fighting against Hizbullah will continue, including attacks on Hizbullah infrastructure and command posts, its operational abilities, its armaments, and the leadership of the organization." This comes as army officials say they estimate they will need at least another 10 to 14 days to effectively destroy Hizbullah’s fighting capability. After the cabinet session, it was announced that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Jerusalem this coming Sunday.

Action also intensified today along Israel’s other war front in the Gaza Strip and north of Jerusalem. The army crossed again into central Gaza in search of a captured soldier being held in the area. The operation involved at least 30 armored vehicles, mostly tanks. Five IDF soldiers were wounded in the initial phase of today’s operation. Several Palestinian rockets were fired into Israeli territory once again from the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile officials said that a rocket fired yesterday that landed near a western Negev kibbutz was a new and more lethal version of the Palestinian Kassam rockets that have struck Israeli territory hundreds of times in recent months. It was identified as a Grad-type rocket. In Nablus north of Jerusalem, three Palestinian fighters were reportedly killed in clashes with IDF troops who surrounded a building where various militants were believed to be holed up.

As I wrote yesterday, I am scheduled to be interviewed on the prophetic possibilities of the ongoing conflict live via satellite on the Lesea television network Harvest program. That is broadcast at 9:00 AM EST, or 6:00 AM PST. However the international time I gave out on Tuesday was incorrect. It should read 13:00 GMT. That interview can be viewed live via their web site, www.lesea.com Click on the “view” bottom under the WHT satellite tag on the left of their home page.

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THURSDAY, JUNE 20 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Armed clashes continue along the Israel-Lebanon border today, with reports that several more Israeli soldiers have been wounded in the exchanges after two were killed yesterday. That comes after the Iranian-proxy militia force audaciously tried to infiltrate the upper Galilee Israeli town of Metulla late yesterday, lobbing rockets into the town, followed by an attempt to cut the border security fence. The apparent goal was to take Israeli residents of Metulla hostage into Lebanon. Along with the heavy border fighting yesterday and today, the attack shows that the extremist Shiite militia is still very active right along the border even after a week of intensive Israeli air force bombings and tank and artillery fire. This comes after Israel dropped some 23 tons of bombs overnight onto a building in southeast Beirut believed to be covering a bunker containing Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Although the group claimed no Hizbullah leaders were killed in the strike, we have so far had no word from Nasrallah some 18 hours later, which some believe is a sign he was indeed killed or wounded in the massive strike.

Israeli officials are beginning to concede that the Lebanese Shiite militia force—funded and trained by Iran and commanded by an estimated 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guards stationed with them—is proving harder to neutralize than many had anticipated. Thus, a substantial Israeli ground operation is becoming more likely every day. This was basically confirmed today in remarks made by Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Armed Forces Chief Dan Halutz. While visiting portions of northern Israel hit hard by some 1,600 Iranian and Syrian produced rockets over the past week, Peretz told reporters that, "Hizbullah must not think that we would recoil from using all kinds of military measures against it.” He added that while Israel does not intend to reoccupy portions of Lebanon, it would “not retreat from any military measures that might be needed to finish the job.” This came after the army announced last night that all Lebanese civilians should immediately leave their homes in the southern border region with Israel, up to the Litani River. This is estimated to be tens of thousands of people, including residents of the biblical town of Tyre.

Even more telling, Chief of Staff Halutz issued his first official missive to his troops during the current conflict today, declaring that the fighting may last for “an extended period of time.” Here is a portion of his written comments: "The State of Israel is in the midst of fighting an extremist Islamic terrorist organization that denies our right to exist, and is operating under the auspices of Iran and Syria, which aim to threaten Israel's sovereignty. The fighting was aggravated after provocations by Hizbullah and Hamas, which carried out terrorist attacks in Israeli territory, in which a number of IDF fighters were killed and Corporal Gilad Shalit and reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted. We are responsible for defending our country's independence and sovereignty, and for the security of its citizens.”

" The fighting in the north was tagged on to the fighting in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and may continue for an extended period of time. This is a test for us. Our moral and ideological strength will reflect on the country's citizens and will aid their ability to face the threat on the home front. The society's strength and the trust has in the IDF strengthens us and will continue to do so. We will do whatever it takes to maintain the state's security. The terrorist groups misread the map and misinterpreted the resolve of Israeli society and the IDF. The army is operating on the Lebanese front to destroy terrorist infrastructure and terrorist-supporting infrastructure. We hit and will hit Hizbullah strongholds in Lebanon, as well as the organization's rockets, while also hitting Palestinian terror.”

ARE WE MISSING ANYTHING?

I just completed an interivew for a radio network program based in Ohio, and was asked if there is anything that western television news viewers are not being shown in the current conflict. I mentioned two things. Having viewed dozens of reports over the past 48 hours via CNN International, the BBC World Service, the British Sky network and its sister American Fox News Channel (all carried on Israel’s two main cable-satellite systems), I noticed that while all are naturally focusing on foreigners and Lebanese citizens fleeing the fighting in Lebanon, not one that I saw mentioned that around a quarter of a million Israelis have also fled their homes in the north in recent days to escape Hizbullah’s rockets that have already killed over a dozen civilians and wounded hundreds. This large exodus helps explain why the Israeli death toll has not been higher.

The flight for safety was personally illustrated to me last night when a close Israeli friend, who heads a youth ministry here in Jerusalem, told me that he and his wife and two children are hosting his wife’s aunt and her family who had fled their home north of the coastal town of Nahariya, which has been hit hard by rocket fire in recent days. He noted that other relatives wanted to join them, but there was simply no more room for them. Indeed, he told me his wife’s aunt was shocked to hear that a rocket had landed just outside her abandoned home yesterday. This refugee situation is being duplicated in tens of thousands of Israeli homes in the center and south of the country (most of them typical smallish apartments that don’t really have room for visiting families), but no one in the international media seems to be taking any notice of this aspect of the story.

Another thing I mentioned is that hundreds of thousands of Syrians moved into Lebanon during the 27 years that Syrian forces occupied two-thirds of the country, mostly for employment purposes, especially in recent years when the economy substantially expanded. Although some followed Syrian troops back into Syria last summer, many others did not, and therefore it is only reasonable to assume that at least a fair portion of the thousands of “Lebanese refugees” crossing the border into Syria in recent days—in a highly televised movement—are actually Syrians returning home to avoid the fighting. This is not at all to minimize the real suffering that the Lebanese population is going through at present, but just to illustrate that the story is often more complicated than the international media portrays.

Another thing I could have mentioned, but did not, is that I have not seen one international media report interviewing friends or relatives of the two young Arab Israeli brothers, aged just 3 and 7, who were brutally slaughtered when a Hizbullah rocket slammed into the alley where they were playing soccer last evening in the biblical town of Nazareth. As a journalist, I would have thought that this was a natural story to cover more intensively, but as far as I have seen it has not been the case, at least on the international outlets mentioned above. The two boys were from a Sunni Muslim family, and it would have been interesting to hear how such Israeli Muslims feel about a Shiite paramilitary force from a neighboring country lobbing rockets into their mostly Arab town—the largest Arab population center inside of Israel’s pre-1967 borders. By the way, as a result of the deadly strike, Israel television has stepped up home front command announcements in Arabic instructing the country’s million-plus Arab citizens how to better protect themselves during the current conflict.

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FRIDAY, JULY 21 3:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Israel’s third largest city has come under Hizbullah rocket attack again this afternoon just as those Jewish resident who have not fled the port city were making final preparations for the Sabbath, which begins at sundown. The first attack came just as mid-day Friday Muslim prayers were ending, with at least five rockets striking the city, wounding several civilians, one of them seriously. Other rockets fell in Tiberius and several other locations. A second wave of rockets has just struck the city, with one of them reportedly hitting a tall apartment building. Around 30 rockets rained down upon Israeli territory on Thursday, a significant drop in the number of strikes from the previous day. Late reports say an Israeli artillery shell has hit a UN outpost in southern Lebanon.

The latest Hizbullah rocket blitz came after a relatively quiet night in terms of such attacks. However the border area with Lebanon is hardly peaceful, with intense clashes continuing all night and again today. Israeli media outlets are reporting that substantial numbers of IDF soldiers are already operating inside south Lebanon, apparently working to establish a new buffer zone designed to stop most of the rocket firings into Israeli territory. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz indicated today that a large military reserve call-up may be imminent. Some 3,000 men reportedly received their notices today. This came after Lebanon’s Prime Minister said he may order his army to join the fight against IDF forces in the south of his country, which would significantly up the war ante.

The funerals for the four Israeli soldiers killed in fierce fighting yesterday are being held today. The deaths bring to 19 Israeli soldiers killed since Hizbullah forces ambushed an IDF patrol and sparked the conflict on July 12th. One Israeli airman was killed when two military helicopters collided near midnight last night in the upper Galilee. Ironically many Israelis learned of the tragic accident just before going to bed via the American Fox news channel, which had reporters near the scene of the accident who rushed to the scene. Israeli media normally withholds such news involving fatalities until next of kin are officially notified of the death. (See my personal story regarding that below).

Meanwhile Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah broadcast a statement over the Al Jazeera network last night, confirming reports that he had not been killed or wounded in a massive Israeli air strike on a site believed to cover his underground bunker in southeast Beirut. He boasted that his forces would prevail in the current conflict, adding he would not agree to stop firing rockets until Israel agreed to release Lebanese prisoners in exchange for two kidnapped Israeli reserve soldiers. While apologizing for the deaths of two Arab-Israeli boys in a missile strike on Nazareth Wednesday evening, Nasrallah went on to hail them as “shahids” (martyrs) in the Islamic holy war against Israel. Of course he didn’t previously ask the young brothers if they wanted to die for his jihad cause. Their father did tell CNN (which finally broadcast a story on the boy’s deaths some 26 hours after they occurred) that he blamed Israeli leaders for his son’s slaughter, taking the politically correct line as the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict continues to intensify.

LONG AND BITTER WAR?

The comment from the slain brother’s Arab-Israeli father might indicate just how difficult a battle Israel seems to be facing just ahead. The longer the conflict goes on, the more local and regional Arab public opinion is likely to harden against the world’s only Jewish-run state. This comes despite the fact that most Arabs are Sunni Muslims with no natural affinity for their Shiite cousins. Of course, Israeli leaders understand all of that, but see no other choice but to fight a group that has launched repeated and unprovoked attacks upon Israel ever since IDF forces fled Lebanon virtually overnight in May 2000.

Israeli leaders realize that Hizbullah is actually a Lebanese puppet force that is largely controlled by two regional Islamic powers, Iran and Syria. As the fighting goes on, it is becoming clear that the Iranian-funded and trained Hizbullah militia was far more prepared for this conflict than most Israeli security analysts and politicians had anticipated. In reality, Israel is not just battling a rogue militia force, but is already at war with both Syria and Iran. This means a much larger and longer conflict is probably in store than IDF generals were predicting just one week ago.

Indeed, the chances that the intense ground fighting, Israeli air force bombings and Hizbullah rocket strikes will lead to direct Syrian involvement is seemingly growing every day. One of Israel’s largest newspapers, Maariv, features a bold front page headline in today’s Friday edition declaring that Sheik Nasrallah has decided to do everything in his power to draw Syria into the fighting. The article notes that many international media outlets seem to be egging this on, running repeated reports of suffering Lebanese civilians demanding regional Arab military intervention.

Meanwhile increasing numbers of overseas tourists are canceling travel plans to the Holy Land. I spoke yesterday with a close friend who runs health clubs in several Jerusalem hotels and businesses. If fact he just opened a new facility in the beautiful Mount Zion hotel near my home. He told me that only last month he hired extra staff to handle his mushrooming workload, bringing his employee numbers up the level where they were just prior to the outbreak of the Palestinian Al Aksa attrition war in September 2000. Now, he has been forced to dismiss all of his new workers and several others who have been with him for a longer time period, in anticipation of a major tourist slump just ahead.

My friend also informed me that, following the birth of his second daughter last month and his turning 30 years old last April, he has been given a new non-combat assignment if he is called up to do army reserve duty. Instead of active fighting, he will be on a team sent to the homes of slain IDF soldiers to inform family members of their deaths. He added grimly that he would really rather be on the front lines of the conflict.

Thanks to all who have written in recent days to express your appreciation for these war updates and to say you are praying for us who are near or in the middle of the conflict. I hope you all have a peaceful weekend as you continue to watch events here in the Lord’s special Promised Land.

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SATURDAY JULY 22, 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Even though it is nearing the end of the Jewish Sabbath, it has hardly been a quiet day here in the Holy Land, with nearly 80 Hizbullah rockets landing all over the north by 6:00 PM. Hizbullah militia forces attacked an Israeli military outpost near Avivim in the past hour, reportedly wounding at least one Israeli solider. Earlier a private house took a direct Hizbullah rocket hit in the town of Carmiel, injuring several people, one moderately. Other rockets rained down around Haifa, Kiryat Shmona (where I lived from 1982 until 1984), Safed, the Golan Heights, Nahariya, and many other locations. Casualties were relatively light since most residents of these areas (over one million people) have either evacuated their homes or are virtually living in bomb shelters. I spoke with some residents of the north who are taking shelter here in the Jerusalem area last evening, and they said they are hopeful they may be able to return to their homes in the coming few days, but not overly optimistic that this will indeed be the case.

The renewed rocket assaults all across northern Israel today came as Israeli tanks and special forces conducted additional pinpoint operations across the international border, especially near Avivim due north of Safed where five soldiers were killed in heavy fighting on Thursday. (It was revealed overnight that some of the intense Israeli shelling there then was designed to cover a prolonged, but eventually successful attempt to recover the body of a slain soldier that was located behind Hizbullah lines). Another cross border incursion was launched in the Meron a-Ras area this morning, where IDF forces were seeking out and destroying underground Hizbullah bunkers and rocket launchers. Destroying such rocket launchers is considered especially vital in order to stop the daily blitz of rockets upon Israeli civilian centers. Residents of some 13 Lebanese villages and towns along the border, including the largest Maronite Christian town, Marjayoun, near to where I worked in the early 80s, have been ordered to leave their homes by sundown as IDF forces seek out Hizbullah militia fighters and rocket positions operating in those areas.

Israeli air force jets continued to pound portions of Lebanon today, hitting TV transmission towers of three stations, including Hizbullah’s Al Manor station and the leading private station, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp, which is now off the air in most of the country. Cell phone towers were also struck in the attack in what was seen as an attempt to disrupt internal Hizbullah communications. Late reports say that Lebanon’s main oil refinery has been struck in the port city of Tripoli, not far from the Syrian border. Israeli defense officials say over 1,800 air strikes have been launched since the conflict with Hizbullah began on July 12th. Around 40 rocket launch sites were also struck today, mostly in southern Lebanon. This comes after nearly 1,700 Hizbullah rockets were launched at mostly civilian targets in the northern section of the small Jewish state over the past 11 days.

I will be giving a radio update on the fighting today with Jimmy De Young on the Prophecy Today program, broadcast in many parts of the United States at 1:00 PM EST, which is 10:00 AM on the west coast, and 17:00 GMT. It will be streamed live over the internet at their website, www.prophecytoday.com It can also be accessed later at the same website.

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July 23, 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

It has been another day of Iranian and Syrian supplied intensive rocket attacks all across northern Israel, the 12th day in a row that such rockets have crashed down upon Israeli cities and towns in the northern third of the country. This came after 17 Israeli civilians were wounded in over 160 rocket strikes on Saturday, one critically. Today’s rocket blitz left two residents dead in the port city of Haifa, and several others wounded, one seriously. In the past few minutes it has been announced that one of the fatalities was an Arab resident of the city. Undoubtedly Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah will declare him another Arab martyr in the Iranian-led Islamic extremist jihad war to annihilate the world’s only Jewish run state. Another rocket barrage has landed in the Haifa area in the past hour, with five more people reportedly wounded.

An apartment building was set ablaze in today’s initial attack upon Haifa. In another location that cannot be exactly disclosed in order not to help Hizbullah in its targeting process, a man was slaughtered when a Katyusha rocket struck one of Haifa’s busiest boulevards as he was driving on the road. The victim was not killed by the rocket itself, but when his body was torn apart by dozens of the hundreds of metallic balls that the Shiite Lebanese group insidiously packs into each of its warheads—in order to produce the highest possible casualty toll. The Arab victim was killed when a rocket crashed into a carpentry shop in a Haifa suburb that employs Israeli Arabs as well as Jews. Eleven other Haifa resident of Israel’s third largest city sustained wounds in the Hizbullah blitz. Visiting French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy was among hundreds of thousand of local residents forced to take cover as Hizbullah’s rockets struck the port city. In the past hour, another Israeli driver was seriously wounded when a rocket crashed down in the town of Acre, just north of Haifa. Analysts said the toll of Israeli dead and wounded would have been significantly greater in both locations if the roads had been filled with cars, as on a normal Sunday. Instead, some half million Israeli civilians have fled the northern third of the country, especially women and children.

Today’s attacks came after the Israeli Home Front Command urged northern citizens this morning to go back to work (Sunday being the first day of the business week here in Israel) if they had a bomb shelter at their work location. Ironically, the man killed in the carpentry shop was slain as he was rushing towards such a shelter. Warning sirens, triggered by radar on US-supplied Patriot anti-missile batteries that have been deployed near the city, give only about one minute warning of incoming rockets. Israeli officials say over 2,200 Hizbullah rockets have now landed in Israel, which is believed to be less than one-fifth of the rockets in Hizbullah’s Syrian and Iranian supplied arsenal. The also noted that Hizbullah is effectively the forth or fifth largest fighting force in the entire Middle East, with military capabilities greater than many regional countries.

ISRAELI AIR STIRKES AND SYRIAN THREATS

In response the latest rocket attacks, Israeli air force helicopters and jets bombed suspected Hizbullah rocket launching positions near the Lebanese port city of Tyre this afternoon. Unfortunately one such strike mistakenly targeted a civilian convoy fleeing the city, killing several Lebanese civilians. Israeli officials expressed regret for the unintended deaths, while noting the Hizbullah militia forces continue to deliberately send their deadly rockets—packed with deadly ball bearing—into Israeli civilian centers, knowing they will kill and main civilian men, women and children in the process. Israeli jets also struck the biblical town of Sidon for the first time overnight, hitting a mosque that housed Hizbullah fighters and weapons.

Israeli jets once again struck Hizbullah positions in southern Beirut today targeting the Al Manor TV station and Hizbullah command centers, which the terrorist group has deliberately located in the midst of Shiite population centers in the area. This came as both UN and British officials condemned Israel today for supposedly committing war crimes in targeting civilian portions of south Beirut, as if killing innocent civilians was Israel’s objective. Meanwhile a top Syrian official warned that his country—which is actually responsible for the conflict along with its ally Iran, having enabled the Hizbullah militia to become a massive fighting force over the past decade that has taken captive an entire country—said Syria will directly enter the war if IDF forces move into the Bekaa Valley, a Hizbullah stronghold. Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told an Arabic newspaper that, "If Israel invades Lebanon over ground and comes near to us, Syria will not sit tight. She will join the conflict.” The threat came as Israeli Defnese Minister Amir Peretz, after a meeting with visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said any multinational force set up after the fighting ends should act to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Syria into Lebanon. In Tehran, Iran’s radical president, Mahmoud Admadinejad, declared today that Israel had "pushed the button of its own destruction" by launching its military campaign against Hizbullah in response to its kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers inside sovereign Israeli territory.
Also today, heavy border ground clashes contiuned between IDF forces and Hizbullah militamen around the south Lebanese town of Meron a-Ras, where five IDF soldiers lost their lives on Thursday. The Isaeli army is finding it difficultt to secure full control over the town, which is located on a hill that is considered strategic for further Israeli army incursions into the area. The army wants to enter several other towns in order to seek out and destroy Hizbullah rockets and launchers known to be located in the area. The border campaign was discussed at today’s weekly Israeli government cabinet meeting today, along with the pending visit of US Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, due here tomorrow.

I will be speaking to dozens of intercessors at a round the clock Christian prayer center near the Mount Zion hotel tomorrow evening, giving them background information on the current conflict. I will also be doing many more radio and television interviews during the week, and will let you know about those in upcoming war updates.

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JULY 24, 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

It seems apparent today that Israeli forces are slowing winning their intense thirteen day battle with the extremist Shiite Muslim Hizbullah militia. However the cost of that victory is growing substantially, with the Israeli military death and wounded toll increasing virtually every hour. As of 5:30 PM, around 70 rockets have landed on Israeli cities or towns after more than 90 struck Israel on Sunday, killing an Arab carpentry worker and a Jewish motorist in Haifa, and wounding many others. A home in Kiryat Shmona did take a direct hit this afternoon, and other rockets landed in Tiberius, in areas around Haifa, in Safed and in several other locations.

Analysts say today’s slightly less intense rocket barrage is largely because of non-stop Israeli air action over the past 48 hours to take out Shiite rocket launchers near the coastal Lebanese town of Tyre (it should be noted that no air strikes have been reported inside of the town since the start of the conflict), and stepped up IDF ground operations further east that have Hizbullah paramilitary forces on the run.

Still, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz warned that the Hizbullah rocket threat—even against Tel Aviv and the international airport—has not yet ended. In fact, he revealed that Israel now has concrete photographic evidence that Hizbullah does indeed possess unknown numbers of Iranian-supplied longer range missiles that can strike Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and possibly even Beersheva in the northern Negev desert. He added that such weapons would probably be saved until the final stages of the current conflict, since the larger rocket launchers needed to lob such missiles into the sky will be more easily spotted and destroyed by the IDF. So the darkest days of Israel’s latest war in terms of the number and depth of targets hit could still lie ahead.

GROUND FIGHTING INTENSIFIES

After taking control of the strategic border town of Maron a-Ras last evening after four days of heavy fighting, large numbers of Israeli soldiers poured across the border to pursue fleeing Hizbullah militiamen. Ten IDF soldiers were wounded in yesterday’s fighting, while at least that number of Hizbullah fighters were reportedly slain. The Iranian and Syrian-backed group claimed that their clear defeat was in fact a victory, issuing a statement that said: "An army that fights with excellent forces and tanks, with the assistance of an air force, that cannot go into a village directly on the border except after a battle that has continued for days with great losses against a number of opposition fighters, is a failed and defeated army.”

The Israeli ground operation going on today, led by elite Golani Brigade fighters, is designed to capture the strategic town of Bint Jibail—the main Shiite stronghold in southern Lebanon, located northeast of Maron a-Ras. Bint Jibail, which I visited in 1982, is where Shiite men from most portions of southern Lebanon gather every year to literally whip themselves into a bloody fury in the name of Allah. It is a known Hizbullah stronghold, and its capture is considered essential to crushing Shiite resistance in the south. Still it is filled with Hizbullah fighters, and its capture is expected to come only after very intense fighting. Unconfirmed, but probably reliable foreign press reports speak of heavy Israeli casualties in today’s battle, which many consider to be Hizbullah’s last major stand in southern Lebanon. Ground operations further west along the coast into the town of Tyre have not yet been sanctioned by the Israeli cabinet.

Meanwhile the Israeli military casualty toll jumped further this afternoon when a helicopter crashed after it became entangled in electric power lines near the Lebanese border. Israeli spokesman strongly denied Hizbullah claims that it had shot down the helicopter. Unconfirmed reports say two IDF pilots were killed in the tragic accident—the second involving air force helicopters in recent days.

RICE DROPS BY

As Israel’s attempts to neutralize the radical Shiite force gather pace, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the region. She surprised most analysts by heading straight to Beirut first—which may be part of the reason Israeli air strikes were largely curtailed in Shiite portions of the city today. After meeting there with Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and other Lebanese officials, she is scheduled to fly to Israel to meet here in Jerusalem this evening with senior government officials.

Rice publicly hailed Seniora for what she termed his “courage and steadfastness” in the current conflict, despite the fact that he has constantly condemned America’s main Middle East ally for supposedly destroying his country. The senior US diplomat later cancelled a scheduled news conference in the Lebanese capital for unannounced reasons.

Concerning Seniora’s repeated claims that Israel is “wrecking” Lebanon, my Lebanese contacts tell me that despite IDF air strikes on general Lebanese infrastructure that is affecting everyone, especially upon public roads and bridges and the international airport, most of the IDF targets are clear Hizbullah centers of activity, even if sometimes located in Shiite civilian areas. They say daily life in mainly Maronite Catholic East Beirut and other Christian, Sunni Muslim and Druze areas goes on with little fear of deadly rockets suddenly crashing down in those areas, unlike in every portion of northern and central Israel, including Arab villages and towns.

Meanwhile former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s comatose condition is deteriorating still further, meaning a state funeral may be looming on the horizon which would normally bring dozens of world leaders to Jerusalem. Nobody knows who might come if the veteran Israeli warrior and politician passes away during the current conflict. I will be giving a live war update this evening, at midnight local time, on the Moody Broadcasting Network’s “Prime Time America” program. If you have no MBN affiliate radio station in your area, you can listen then via their web site, www.mbn.org The interview will begin at exactly 5:00 PM EST, or 2:00 PM in the west in North America, which is 21:00 GMT. I will be doing additional TV and radio interviews later this week, including one to New Zealand, and will pass on specific information about them in future updates.

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JULY 25, 6:30 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Below is my latest commentary for the World Net Daily web site, to be published this week. It naturally concerns the current Mideast crisis, focusing especially on how American policy toward Iran over the years has contributed to the crisis. Some readers in particular may not like my comments as to how the war in Iraq has affected the situation, but it has been my consistent position regarding that controversial issue since before the battle began in March 2003. I warned then in a WND commentary that the situation there would probably end up closely resembling what Israel encountered in Lebanon in the 1990s, as has sadly been exactly the case.

In today war news, as visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem—calling for a “sustainable ceasefire,” in other words not necessarily an immediate one—a 15 year old Druze girl was sadly slain when Hizbullah rockets crashed down on a mixed Arab-Druze village in the Galilee region. The rocket made a direct hit on her family home in the village of Marar, located next door to the community mosque. Several other residents of the mixed Arab Muslim, Druze and Arab Christian village were wounded in the strike. (By the way, the Haifa worker that was killed in a rocket strike on a Haifa carpentry shop on Sunday was actually not an Arab as initially reported in the Israeli media, but an Armenian Christian).

In Haifa, an elderly Jewish man suffered a heart attack and died this afternoon as he was rushing to a bomb shelter while sirens sounded yet again in the port city, signalling a second wave of Syrian and Iranian-provided rocket strikes today (16 rockets landed earlier, most in open spaces next to apartment buildings and a hospital in what Mayor Yonah Yahav called a “miraculous” development). However one apartment building did sustain heavy damage in a direct strike, and another rocket struck next to a city bus. Overall some 50 people had sustained wounds by early evening as dozens of Hizbullah rockets rained down once again all across northern Israel. Overnight, a longer-range Iranian-made rocket was fired at Israel, but thankfully landed harmlessly in the sea.

Israeli military officials announced that they had taken out a number of Hizbullah rocket launchers in air strikes around the Lebanese port city of Tyre this afternoon. Air force jets were also in action for the first time in two days around the Lebanese capital, Beirut. This came as IDF Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the situation in the region is "explosive.” He added that although intelligence officials do not believe that either Syria or Iran wants to become directly involved in the conflict, Syria has placed its military forces on “the highest state of alert.” He warned that Hizbullah leaders are “trying to instigate, to force, another front for Israel with Syria.” Yadin said Iran provides around $100 million in direct aid to Hizbullah each year, and opined that it is probable both Iran and Syria have urged that longer-range rockets that can strike Tel Aviv be mostly held in abeyance until the final phase of the conflict, in order to drag it out as long as possible.

Meanwhile army officials said they were certain that Iranian personnel had joined the two day fight for control over the south Lebanese Shiite town of Bint Jabail. They said the Iranians were spotted commanding the Lebanese militiamen. An army spokesman said the IDF was now in basic control of Bint Jabail, although he admitted that dozens of Hizbullah fighters are still thought to be holed up in buildings in the town of some 20,000 residents, who had mostly fled north before the fighting began. He added that an estimated 40 to 50 Hizbullah fighters had lost their lives in the intense battle. Two Israeli soldiers were also killed, along with two air force pilots killed in a mysterious helicopter crash on the edge of the battle.

I will be interviewed on radio programs this week in both the UK and New Zealand, along with frequent updates on the US Moody radio network. The interview in New Zealand can be heard on the nationwide Rhema radio network at around 11:10 AM on Wednesday morning. The UK interview will air throughout Europe on UBC Europe (Satellite/NTL Cable channel 0125) on Thursday at 6:15 AM and 11:00 PM UK time, and will also be repeated on Sunday at 1:00 PM.

THE ROARING IRANIAN RAT
By David Dolan

Ultimate responsibility for the intense fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon can be directly traced to several American presidents, especially to one Democrat who has been busy building houses ever since he left the Big Bungalow on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Fearing an East-West clash of apocalyptic proportions, Lyndon Johnson thought it best to confront the powerful Soviet Union and China in an indirect manner. He would inflate John F. Kennedy’s mini-war against Soviet and Chinese-backed fighters in relatively insignificant Viet Nam into a major conflict. His successor, Richard Nixon, further fanned the flames before finally agreeing to a ceasefire in January 1973. After the Communist north violated it, Nixon rushed to pull remaining war weary US forces out of the southern half of the divided Southeast Asian country, climaxing with a humiliating final retreat in April 1975. As expected, South Viet Nam was then completely overran by Communist fighters, who subsequently proved uninterested in conquering their neighbors as part of the dreaded “domino” disaster that had long been forecast if America did not decisively win the costly war.

Tired of overseas adventures, a majority of American voters were then ready to scale back their country’s international policeman role. This led to Jimmy Carter’s election as Commander in Chief in 1976 after running on a fairly pacifist platform.

During the latter years of his watch, a turban bound mullah named Ruhollah Khomeini took over a Middle East country called Iran. His January 1979 Shiite Islamic Revolution was met with shocked surprise in Washington, which was then obsessed with Soviet designs on nearby Afghanistan. After all, the radical Muslims were our allies against the red superpower giant that was preparing to end all life on planet earth in some insane nuclear showdown—not!!

The Muslim fundamentalist leader was fit as a fiddle to move to Tehran and take over the reigns of power. This was largely because Carter had naively allowed him to come to America the previous October to receive first class medical attention.

After ousting the pro-West Shah, the Shiite Ayatollah repaid Carter’s kindness by sanctioning the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. Over 50 Americans, mostly government diplomats and employees, were taken captive in the November 1979 action, being held hostage for over one year. Operating in the still strong shadow of the Viet Nam fiasco, Carter refused to see the seizure for what it was—a clear act of war—and ordered relatively feeble (and definitely ineffective) military measures to free the hostages, who were only released when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981.

Flagging American resolve to take on its declared enemies when actually necessary was thankfully reversed during the Reagan years. But the tall ex-actor also contributed to the current Mideast crisis. Fearing an atomic showdown with Moscow, he ordered Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to cancel his Defense Minister’s rational plan to fully oust Syrian occupation forces from all of Lebanon in 1982. Thus Ariel Sharon’s prescient goal to free Lebanon from Syrian (and thus Iranian) domination was thwarted, which opened the door for Khomeini to establish an enduring alliance with Syria that rapidly led to the formation of the extremist Lebanese Hezbollah militia.

The Shiite force quickly proved to be a faithful Iranian-Syrian anti-American puppet when its operatives destroyed US Marines barracks in Beirut in October 1983—the deadliest terrorist atrocity against American servicemen to this day. But this clear act of war was also basically ignored by Soviet-obsessed White House personnel, who simply ordered a humiliating retreat from the battle zone. Hezbollah-Iran-Syria had won, and this fact would set the tone for their later “victory” over war weary Israeli forces that were rushed from the Land of the Cedars in a virtual summer re-run of the US flight from Saigon.

The May 2000 Israeli getaway left its faithful Maronite-run South Lebanese Army allies dazed and confused, and in instant mortal danger from advancing Hezbollah forces. This guaranteed that no Lebanese Christian groups would ever fully ally themselves again with the Jewish-run state.

Meanwhile Iran had succeeded in crushing the US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian “land for peace” process. It began supplying weapons and training to Hamas and Islamic Jihad Palestinian terrorists—mainly via Hezbollah channels—soon after the 1993 Oslo peace accord was signed on the White House lawn by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Emulating Hezbollah’s mushrooming suicide attacks against IDF soldiers in Lebanon, Hamas launched its first deadly bus bombing in April 1994, followed by a flood of such wicked assaults in early 1996. Two months later, Hezbollah let loose with a massive rocket blitz upon northern Israel, leading to the election of Binyamin Netanyahu in May, and the total collapse of the peace process four years later.

And so we come to today. Israel has been forced to re-enter Lebanon and the Gaza Strip with its relatively big guns blazing, leading to inevitable Arab and international condemnation. Its unilateral pullouts from both places—demanded by Lebanese and Palestinian leaders—have been tragically reversed amid a flood of blood. All this as Iran’s outrageous “president,” under orders from Chief Dictator Ayatollah Khameini, repeatedly vows to wipe Israel off of the Middle East map, probably with nuclear weapons.

Is the current White House occupant finally ready to admit that the insidious theocratic Iranian regime has long ago declared war to the death not only against its main Mideast ally Israel, but also against America? Stay tuned. I’m not overly optimistic that the gravity of Iran’s threat to Western interests is fully understood yet in Washington’s halls of power, given that so much time, money and military lives have been spent going after a regional mouse named Saddam, followed by hopeless attempts to bring enduring “democracy” (how about simple stability?) to his basket case, internally divided country. All of that has only served to divert vital attention from the far more dangerous Regional Rat lurking right next door—Iran—and its supplicant surrogates Syria and Hezbollah.

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WEDNESDAY JULY 26, 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Dozens of Hizbullah rockets bombarded many parts of northern Israel this afternoon, including Tiberius and Haifa, wounding over 30 people by 5:30 PM, one critically. This came after Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened again last night to rain longer range rockets upon Tel Aviv, which has been placed under a major security alert this afternoon after intelligence information was received that a terror attack was about to be launched in the area.

The latest rocket blitz came on a day that has turned out to be the deadliest for Israeli military forces since Hizbullah suddenly lobbed rockets into northern Israel exactly two weeks ago today to cover an unprovoked cross border raid designed to kidnap IDF soldiers. The deaths came on the first day of the Hebrew month of Av, when Jews traditionally mourn the destruction of the first and second temples in ancient times, and other catastrophes that have befallen the Jewish people over the centuries. At least nine IDF soldiers were reportedly killed in today’s fighting, and over two dozen others wounded. This came during intense close quarter combat in the south Lebanese Shiite town of Bint Jabail, located some three miles north of Israel’s border with Lebanon. I noted yesterday that while Israel said it had secured overall control of the strategic town, hundreds of heavily armed Hizbullah militiamen were believed to be hiding inside buildings nearly empty of civilian residents. The sheltered fighters suddenly emerged at dawn to engage IDF troops surrounding the town, with horrific results. The army said some of the heaviest fire came from inside a mosque near the edge of town.

The severe combat broke out as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated that Israel would establish a two kilometer border buffer zone all along the international border in order to prevent future Hizbullah infiltrations into Israeli territory, and to push rocket launchers a bit further back from civilian targets in Israel. Olmert outlined the plan in a closed-door meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, reportedly telling legislators that, "We want a two-kilometer space from the border in which it will not be possible to fire rockets toward soldiers and civilian houses, and in which there will not be contact with military border patrols." Just how long Israel might control the new buffer security zone was not spelled out. Olmert is thought to want some sort of international force to take over the area as quickly as possible so as not to give Hizbullah and its regional backers an excuse to continue rocket and ground attacks from Lebanese territory.

Such a force was apparently discussed at an international summit in Rome today, but no concrete decisions were apparently taken, nor was there a unified call for an immediate ceasefire. Israeli officals were said to be dismayed by comments made after the summit by Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora. He began by blasting Israel for supposedly “destroying his country” in order to “bring it to its knees” (he said two days ago that an Israeli air strike on a mosque in Sidon that was filled with Hizbullah weapons was “worse than anything that happened in all of World War Two”!!). Later the Sunni politician lectured Israeli officials on the need to make peace with the Palestinians and all regional Arab countries—as if it was not Hizbullah and its Syrian and Iranian masters who successfully destroyed the “land for peace” Oslo peace process that was meant to do just that, mainly via the economic and weapons aid they have given since the early 1990s to their Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist comrades.

UN DEATHS

Meanwhile Israeli officials were busy dealing with the heavy political fallout from what they all insited was an accidental shelling last evening of a UN outpost in El Khiyam, not far from the main south Lebanese Maronite Christian town of Marjayoun. Four UN “peacekeeping” soldiers were killed in the incident—from Canada, China, Finland and Austria. Officials were dismayed when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan angrily declared that the IDF had “apparently deliberatly targeted” the outpost. Some government leaders privately termed the comment anti-Semitic, dredging up the old canard of evil Jews wantonly killing Gentiles in order to drink or cook with their blood. They said it was absurd to suggest that professionally trained IDF army commanders—in the middle of an intense conflict that has already drawn widespread condemnations of Israel for supposedly using excessive and disproportunate force—had deliberately given an order to slaughter UN soldiers from countries that Israel has close diplomatic and business ties with.

PM Olmert phoned Annan this morning to offer his condolences for the tragic deaths, and to assure him that the shelling was not at all intentional. He said he would order an immediate investigation into the incident, adding that the results would be quickly forwarded to UN officials. Demonstrating again his apparent disdain for Israel, Annan insisted on a joint investigation. Israeli officials noted that Hizbullah often used the ground right around such UN outposts during the 1980 and 90s to shoot rockets at IDF forces, knowing that understandably intimidated UN personell would not dare to stop them. In fact, UN commanders filed complaints several times over such activity, which was seemingly also going on again during yesterday’s heavy artillery and rocket exchanges in the area.

Indeed, the UN’s own chief humanitarian officer, Jan Egeland, admitted on Monday after visiting Beirut that Hizbullah fighters were deliberately stationing themselves among Lebanese Shiite civilians to reduce their own militia casualties, knowing Israel is reluctant to strike such areas. The radical Shiite group would presumably care even less if non-Muslim infidels are killed by IDF fire in the fighting, especially knowing it would bring world wrath upon the Jewish State. Egeland said Hizbullah “must stop this cowardly blending among women and children," adding that he had “heard they are proud because they have lost very few fighters, and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

Israel’s two Chief Rabbis have called for intensive prayer on behalf of the soldiers who have crossed into Hizbullah’s heartland territory in Lebanon. Large crowds gathered last night at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to recite psalms and cry out to the Almighty for His mercy and protection at this dangerous time. Similar gatherings are planned for this evening, and indeed for every evening that the conflict continues.

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JULY 27, 6:30 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

Late reports say that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has revealed that kidnapped 19 year old Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted by Hamas terrorists next to the Gaza Strip one month ago, may soon be released. However Israeli officials say they have no knowledge of this. The reports came just after a Hizbullah rocket set a chemical-filled factory ablaze in the northern Galilee town of Kiryat Shmona late this afternoon, sending the chemicals up in smoke. However no casualties were reported in the attack. The town of nearly 20,000 is nearly empty of its residents, who earlier fled to safer locations further south. Two homes also took direct hits in today’s rocket strikes. Despite the Hizbullah assaults, Israeli officials noted a drop in the number of rockets flying across the international border today, although over 10 Israeli civilian communities were struck, wounding around a dozen people by 6:00 PM. Over 150 rockets crashed down yesterday—the heaviest barrage yet in the two week war. Israeli officials say that 19 people, including several children, have perished so far in the daily rocket assaults, while over 1,300 civilians have been wounded, around 100 of them seriously (some have lost limbs and eyesight in the strikes, due mainly to the thousands of ball bearings that Hizbullah wickedly packs into the 80 pound warheads to increase civilian casualties). Another 600 people have been treated for shock.

Today’s relatively lighter rocket barrage was thought to be at least partially the result of the targeted destruction late yesterday of a ten story apartment building in the coastal town of Tyre, where Hizbullah’s southern commander was believed to operate his headquarters. No Hizbullah rocket firings were reported from the area for the first time in over two weeks, giving hard hit Haifa its quietest day this week. Despite hysterical Arab and foreign media reports claiming that a war crime had been committed in the Israeli air strike, which leveled the building, local officials admitted today that the 40 apartments were empty of their occupants (apparently they knew who lived amongst them), and only the building janitor was killed.

Meanwhile the Israeli inner security cabinet—meeting in a special emergency session for several hours today at military headquarters in Tel Aviv—decided not to authorize an army plan to launch a land incursion into the Tyre area, a major Hizbullah stronghold. Cabinet ministers, who include a number of ex-army generals, agreed with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that ground forces would only operate relatively close to the international border for the time being. However the cabinet did decide to authorize the calling up of more reserve soldiers to give serving troops a break from the recent heavy action. This came as army leaders said they needed a few more weeks to neutralize the Hizbullah threat.

VALE OF TEARS

Hundreds of Israelis are attending funerals around this small country today for the nine soldiers killed in yesterday’s fierce combat, eight of them in the Shiite town of Bint Jabail. The dead included an immigrant from Ethiopia. Over 20 soldiers remain hospitalized following the intense fighting, most of them in very serious condition. Fighting continued again today in the Bint Jabail area. The Air Force also struck a Lebanese army base north of Beirut that was believed to be sending radar information about Israeli warships and jets to Hizbullah militia leaders. This came amid media reports that some Shiite members of the regular Lebanese army are feeding intelligence information to Hizbullah, along with Syria.

In other developments, UN officers in southern Lebanon admitted today that Hizbullah fighters have been shooting at Israeli positions from ground next to UN outposts, in an apparent attempt to draw return Israeli fire. This came as a Kuwaiti media outlet claimed that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah had fled Lebanon in an armored vehicle in order to meet with Iranian and Syrian leaders in Damascus. Several reports in the Lebanese media today claimed that Nasrallah now desires an immediate ceasefire, apparently realizing that his militiamen are getting pummeled by superior Israeli forces. Israeli press reports said yesterday that the Shiite Sheik was holed up in the basement of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, certain that Israel would not dare strike the complex.

Al Qaida jumped into the fray today as Al Jazeera television broadcast a tape from Osama Bin Laden’s chief deputy, Iman Zawahiri, calling for stepped up Muslim terror strikes against Israeli targets to support Palestinian Hamas and Hizbullah forces. He also called for a stepped up jihad holy war against Israel and the West until Islam reigns supreme from “Spain to Iraq.” Israel Radio also reported today that Al Qaida-backed Palestinian terror cells located in south Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee neighborhoods have joined the fighting, and may have also fired some rockets into Israel, as they claimed to do several months ago. This came as IDF forces stepped up their military campaign overnight to locate kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip, killing a large number of Palestinian fighters and, sadly, also some nearby women and children. As noted above, media reports in the past few minutes claim that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas will soon announce that the abducted soldier will soon be released.

IRISH BOG AND PSALM 83

The announcement in Ireland this week that an ancient book, dated to 800-1000 AD, was discovered last week by a construction worker digging in a bog has been gladly received here in Israel, especially by Orthodox Jewish leaders. The fact that it was opened to a page containing Psalm 83—which Israel’s two Chief Rabbis urged be recited just one day before the discovery was announced as part of worldwide spiritual campaign to support IDF troops in Lebanon—is being seen as a sign from On High by many people. I am quoted in a story about this published today on the front page mast of the World Net Daily web site, which also carries my latest commentary on its editorial page. Here is a portion of that article:

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND
'Psalm in a bog' linked to Israel's current war
Some say Scripture find in Ireland has meaning with present conflict

Posted: July 26, 2006
By Joe Kovacs
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The "miraculous" find of an ancient psalms in an Irish bog has some wondering if there's any special modern relevance, since the discovery dealt with the enemies of Israel attempting to destroy the nation. The bog find was heralded by the Irish museum on Tuesday, one day after a call for global prayer on behalf of Israel. Psalm 83 was one of the three psalms recited at various locations worldwide on Tuesday at the request of the governing council of Israel's Chief Rabbinate.

In his book, “Israel in Crisis,” author David Dolan dedicates an entire chapter to Psalm 83. "I detail who the protagonists are in the psalm, and then go on to talk about when it might be fulfilled," he told WND.
If you are interested in reading my thoughts on that important and seemingly timely psalm, you can get acquire a copy of Israel in Crisis, published by Baker/Revell, via my web site, www.ddolan.com and also by calling the North American toll free number listed below.

I will be discussing this interesting topic during a live television interview from my central Jerusalem home tomorrow morning, North American time. The Harvest program, broadcast on the LeSea network, can be viewed live on line at 9:00 AM EST, which is an early 6:00 AM on the west coast, or 13:00 GMT. It can be seen at their web site, www.lesea.com The interview will be broadcast later on the METV Harvest program here in Israel, probably sometime next week.

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JULY 28, 6:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

A Hizbullah announcement in the past hour revealed that several Iranian rockets, with a longer range than the Katyushas fired so far, were launched at Israeli civilian targets this afternoon. Moments ago an IDF spokeswoman announced that five rockets carrying 100 kilograms of explosives—probably the Zelzal rocket—landed around the Jezreel Valley town of Afula, the furthest south any Hizbullah rocket has landed so far. The town, situated next to a kibbutz that I lived on in early 1982, is located southeast of Haifa and Nazareth. Miraculously, no civilian casualties were reported. The Zelzal is believed to have a range of around 120 miles, placing all of greater Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in danger. The Hizbullah announcement identified the rockets as the Kybar-1. The ominous attack upon Afula came as the Israeli public was preparing for the weekly Sabbath, which begins at sundown.

Earlier in the day, some 70 rockets landed in various Israeli communities, partially destroying a private home on an upper Galilee kibbutz and another house in the central Galilee town of Ma’alot. Twelve Israeli civilians were wounded in those rocket hits. More than 100 Katyushas came crashing down on Thursday, and over 150 the day before. Alarms were sounded in Haifa during the day, but rockets fired at Israel’s third largest city landed in the nearby sea. Israeli officials believe the reduced number of Katyusha rocket launchings so far today is at least partly the result of their successful effort to destroy Hizbullah’s southern rocket command center early Wednesday, which was cynically located on the top floor of a civilian apartment building in the coastal town of Tyre. However media reports say rockets were fired from near the port town in the past few hours for the first time in two days—probably the longer-range rockets that struck around Afula.

Meanwhile intense ground combat continued in the Bint Jabail area today as elite IDF units searched for Hizbullah hideouts in the hills of southern Lebanon. Israeli air strikes were also launched at the Shiite town of Nabitiya further north—another major Hizbullah stronghold—and also at targets in the Bekaa Valley. This came as the IDF officially estimated that more than 200 Hizbullah militiamen have been killed in the 17 day conflict. Late reports say an Israeli mortar shell landed near a convoy of journalists that was traveling south of Tyre this afternoon, wounding three people. An IDF spokesman said the convoy was not cleared in advance with the army.

SYRIAN ATTACK ON TEL AVIV?

The latest Hizbullah missile strikes came as Israeli officials announced late yesterday that both Patriot and Arrow anti-missile systems are now being deployed in the Tel Aviv area. Analysts say this is a concrete indication that they believe Hizbullah will attempt to strike Israel’s population heartland with Iranian-made Zelzal missiles. However the highly sophisticated Arrow system, developed with substantial American economic assistance, is mainly designed to shoot down ballistic missiles that are not in Hizbullah’s known arsenal, but are deployed in large numbers by both Syria and Iran. Some analysts said this is a clear indication that the government either fears or expects the current conflict to widen into a larger Middle East war.

The front page of Israel’s largest circulation newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, features a bold headline today that declares “EMERGENCY MILITARY ALERT IN SYRIA: PATRIOT ROCKETS DEPLOY IN SHARON (Tel Aviv area).” The article below states that yesterday’s 12 member inner Security Cabinet decision to authorize the calling up of three reserve divisions—over 30,000 men—has more to do with a potential clash with Syria than any expanded ground operation against Hizbullah. Army officials made clear late yesterday that only senior reserve division commanders are actually being drafted into the army at present, with their subordinate fighters placed on standby alert for further orders if and when IDF officers deem it necessary to actually deploy them.

Meanwhile veteran Lebanese Druze leader Walid Junblatt—a onetime ally of Syria who last year spearheaded the effort to have Syrian occupation forces removed from his country—said that Iran is using the current conflict to test its weapon systems against Israel, and to assess the IDF’s fighting capabilities. Junblatt noted that the laser-guided Iranian Silkworm C-802 missile that heavily damaged an Israeli naval vessel off the coast of Beirut two weeks ago, killing four sailors, was such a test. He said he also fears that the Baathist regime in Damascus might use the current crisis to reassert its once dominant position in Lebanon. He charged the Syrian police state with triggering the current conflict, via its Hizbullah surrogate, in order to “continue to hold Lebanon hostage.”

Police officials say a 59 year old Israeli civilian doctor was kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists this week north of Jerusalem. His blood-soaked body, discovered in the trunk of a car, was buried this afternoon. On the southern front, IDF forces pulled out of portions of the Gaza Strip this morning after heavy clashes with Hamas militants there over the past few days, which left over 20 Palestinian fighters and several non-combatants dead, including a 75 year old woman. Soon after the pullout was completed, Palestinian Kassam rockets were once again launched at Israeli civilian targets. One rocket landed just outside a kindergarten on a kibbutz near the city of Ashkelon, wounding two eight year old Israeli children playing nearby. Meanwhile Hamas leaders have rebuffed comments made by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit may soon be set free.

Here in Jerusalem, scores of Palestinian young men clashed with reinforced police forces in the Old City. Police used stun grenades to disperse the large crowd. The Palestinians were protesting Israeli restrictions imposed on Friday prayers on the Temple Mount. Police commanders decided to ban all males between the ages of 18 and 40 from the site after word came yesterday that a major demonstration was being planned on the mount by Muslim activists. The clash came just two days after Al Qaida called for stepped up “jihad attacks” upon Israel.

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MONDAY JULY 31, 8:00 PM

Shalom from Jerusalem,

The political and diplomatic fallout continues today from Israel’s air strike in the south Lebanese town of Qana yesterday, which killed over 50 non-combatants residents, many of them children. The tragic action prompted visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to urge Israeli leaders to halt all air strikes in Lebanon for a period of time to allow aid convoys to bring fresh supplies into south Lebanon, and for remaining civilians to flee the battle zone. After declaring a conditional 48 hour time out, there have nevertheless been a few Air Force strikes today, mainly to support IDF troops engaged in heavy fighting with Hizbullah militiamen in the border town of Kfar Kila, northeast of Kiryat Shmona. An Israeli Merkava (Chariot) tank was hit and partially destroyed by a Hizbullah anti-tank rocket there this morning. The crew escaped injury, but several other soldiers were wounded in the clashes.

Meanwhile Hizbullah lobbed several mortar shells into the northern Galilee region today, but very few if any Katyusha rockets for the first time in 20 days. That followed the heaviest barrage of the war so far on Sunday when over 140 rockets fell all over northern Israel, causing damage in many locations, but miraculously only relatively light casualties. A senior government source told Israeli reporters this afternoon that the IDF has destroyed around two-thirds of Hizbullah’s long-range rocket capability, saying the Iranian-Syrian backed group has very few operative rocket launchers left intact, even though it still possesses a large stockpile of rockets. He denied a Hizbullah claim to have struck an Israeli ship with a lazar-guided missile earlier today.

Despite the relative lull in the action, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just made it clear during a speech that the war will go on until Israel achieves more of its goal of neutralizing Hizbullah’s fighting ability. He also issued another apology to the citizens of Lebanon over yesterday’s bombing in Qana, which Syrian dictator Bashar Assad labeled as “state terrorism.” Defense Minister Amir Peretz also stated earlier today that no ceasefire had been agreed to by the government. He told a special emergency Knesset session—under heavy heckling by Arab lawmakers—that the war would not end until the Hizbullah rocket threat to Israeli civilian centers was brought to a complete end.

In fact, Peretz pledged that the IDF will be ordered to “expand and strengthen” its military activities in the coming days. The Defense Minister also vowed to conduct a full and fair investigation into Sunday’s Qana bombing. Israeli newspapers criticized the government for withholding drone pictures showing Hizbullah rockets being fired from the town until the main local TV newscasts went on the air at 8:00 PM last night—long after the IDF bombing sparked a furor in the Arab world. The army said today that the attack was actually not a mistake, since the Air Force had solid information that Hizbullah fighters were storing weapons in the building, which has so far not been confirmed by other sources nor disproved. Whether local civilians in the town knew this or not is also unclear. In New York, the United Nations postponed a scheduled meeting that is scheduled to discuss the establishment of some sort of international peacekeeping border force, “until there is more political clarity” on the way to proceed, as one UN official put it.

Below is my monthly news and analysis report, written primarily for several international branches of the group Christian Friends of Israel. It contains background information on the current conflict, including the fact that the large-scale IDF military operation currently underway was originally planned for over three years ago. Why it was delayed then, and again in early 2005, is spelled out. I hope it helps you to better understand the latest crisis currently engulfing the turbulent Middle East. I will be giving a news update on the conflict today on the Moody Broadcasting Network, at exactly 5:00 EST in North American, 2:00 PST, which is 21:00 GMT. The broadcast can be accessed live via their web site, www.mbn.org Additional war updates will probably be given later this week.

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ISRAEL-HIZBULLAH WAR ROCKS MIDDLE EAST
By David Dolan

The long and bitter Arab-Muslim conflict with Israel entered a new phase in mid-July when Lebanese Hizbullah militiamen emulated their Palestinian Hamas allies in launching an audacious cross border raid into sovereign Israeli territory in order to kidnap IDF soldiers. The radical Shiite Muslim group did this knowing full well that Israel would probably respond forcefully to the abductions, which violate international law, as they did in the Gaza Strip when a soldier was taken hostage in late June. In fact, Israeli officials suspect that the two illegal actions were directly ordered by non-Arab Iran—which supplies weapons and financial assistance to both extremist groups—in an attempt to spark a major conflict that would divert world attention from Tehran’s ominous nuclear program. This suspicion was reinforced when various security agencies revealed that Iran had signed a secret mutual defense pact with Syria in mid-June.

If deflecting international attention from its nuclear program was the Iranian regime’s goal, it worked, at least temporarily. World leaders at the G8 summit in Russia spent most of their time discussing the latest Muslim-Israeli crisis instead of Iran’s refusal to heed EU and American calls to immediately halt its uranium enrichment program. With Al Jazeera and other Arab television networks running frequent, highly charged reports maintaining that Israel was deliberately massacring hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in response to the twin terrorist kidnappings, worldwide Islamic wrath against the planet’s only Jewish state quickly reached a new fever pitch—which Israeli analysts warned could lead to a much wider conflict in the coming weeks. Such a possibility was thought to be behind the Israeli Security Cabinet’s July 27th decision to call up three reserve army divisions (which my security sources tell me is well over the 30,000 men reported in the international media), and to deploy Patriot and Arrow anti-missile systems around Tel Aviv.

Within days of the July 12th abductions of two IDF soldiers and the slaying of seven others by Hizbullah fire, government leaders around the globe were already rebuking Israel for its supposedly “disproportionate” military response to the unprovoked cross border raid, even though most also condemned Hizbullah for its sudden incursion that sparked the crisis. The harshest reprimands naturally came from regional Muslim leaders, especially Lebanese Sunni Prime Minister Fuad Seniora who maintained that Israel was “destroying” his country. Israeli leaders denied the hyperbolic contention, noting that Seniora realized that most Air Force strikes were directed at Hizbullah targets in Shiite dominated areas, especially in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in the Hizbullah-controlled Bekaa Valley east of the capital city, along of course with heavy bombing of Hizbullah strongholds in south Lebanon from where the Iranian-Syrian puppet force was blitzing Israeli civilian communities with daily rocket bombardments.

Israeli officials noted that while over 100,000 south Lebanese residents had left their homes after Israel warned them to flee in order to pursue Hizbullah fighters in the area, at least as many Israelis had also evacuated their homes as Katyusha rockets continued to pound the north of the country, where over one million Israelis live. They added that Lebanese residents of mainly Christian East Beirut and mainly Sunni West Beirut were carrying on their daily lives with few noticeable disruptions, although all could certainly hear the disturbing sounds of Israeli bombs hitting suspected Hizbullah targets in the city’s mainly Shiite southern suburbs.

Adequate food and other essential supplies were reaching Beirut, said Israeli officials, despite the bombing of the nearby international airport and the partial IDF naval blockade—designed to stop Syria and Iran from shipping more rockets and other weapons to their Hizbullah surrogate force by air, and from the Syrian port of Latikia north of Lebanon. Israeli jets actually left one runway operational for smaller aircraft, to allow aid relief to be flown into the country. The highway to Damascus was heavily bombed, but then again they noted that most Lebanese citizens rarely use that highway, if at all. They admitted that the action disrupted commerce on the road, which runs through the Hizbullah-ruled Bekaa Valley, but also the ground transport of weapons from Syria, not to mention hundreds of Iranian jihadist “volunteers” who were said to be on their way to fight with their Shiite brethren.

TRAGEDY IN QANA

Israeli government and military leaders did acknowledge the sad fact that scores of Lebanese civilians, including women and children, were being unintentionally wounded or killed in the daily Air Force bombings, just as hundreds of Israeli civilians had been killed or wounded by Hizbullah fire which was deliberately directed at them. Officials were horrified to learn that one air strike on July 30th had left a large crater right next to an apartment building in the southern Shiite village of Qana, which later collapsed upon over 50 Lebanese civilians taking shelter in its lower floors, many of them children.

The IDF said it had no idea that the building contained any civilians, adding that they were targeting Hizbullah fighters that had been launching dozens of Katyusha rockets from the village at Israeli Galilee civilian centers (rockets that had killed 19 Israeli civilians and left hundreds more injured, many critically, by that date). Photographic evidence of this fact was later shown on Israel television, with the army noting that Hizbullah militia forces often store their rockets in civilian homes, and then rush to the same homes for cover after firing them off toward Israeli civilian centers. They noted that nearly all of the 2,000 plus rockets shot into northern Israel since mid July had been cynically fired from built up Lebanese civilian areas.

Despite the tragic news, Israeli officials noted that Hizbullah leaders seemed to be deliberately trying to increase the number of Lebanese civilian casualties to spur regional Arab anger at Israel, as the PLO did when it occupied south Lebanon in the early 1980s. They pointed out that the United Nation’s chief humanitarian watchdog, Jan Egeland, had rebuked Hizbullah militiamen on July 24th for “cowardly blending in among women and children" in a deliberate attempt to discourage Israeli strikes upon themselves. In other words, the Shiite fighters understand that Israel is extremely reluctant to hit known civilian positions even if it has hard intelligence that Hizbullah fighters are operating from them. Egeland, who had earlier rebuked Israel for using “excessive force” in its campaign to weaken the Lebanese militia and push it back from the border area, added with disgust that he had heard that Hizbullah leaders “are proud because they have lost very few fighters, and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

Yielding to pressure from visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a quick pause in Air Force bombings, Israeli leaders announced a 48 hour suspension of their air activity over Lebanon the evening of the Qana tragedy, but added they would strike any rocket launching sites that continued to bombard Israelis towns. Less than 12 hours after the suspension began, Hizbullah opened fire again at the besieged town of Kiryat Shmona, largely empty of its 18,000 Jewish citizens for over two weeks. Analysts said the move signaled that the radical group and its Syrian and Iranian paymasters were not yet ready for a final end of hostilities. Israeli officials also made clear that the two day time out—partially designed to allow any remaining Lebanese civilians to evacuate the border area—did not spell an end to their campaign to neutralize Hizbullah’s grave rocket threat.

EXCESSIVE FORCE?

Many of Israel’s closest allies joined the international protest chorus over the scale of Israel’s response to Hizbullah’s mid-July cross-border provocation. Yet Israeli officials did not even attempt to hide the fact that the latest kidnappings and rockets barrages were simply the final straw after a series of such illegal actions by the extremist militia that is backed by two large regional countries with combined populations nearly 15 times the size of Israel’s. They well recall that Hizbullah expressed its immediate support for the new Palestinian attrition war launched in September 2000 by kidnapping and killing IDF soldiers and an Israeli businessman in early October of that year—a mere five months after then Prime Minister Ehud Barak fulfilled UN demands for a complete military pullout from Lebanon. Subsequent periodic Hizbullah rocket strikes upon Israeli communities and military positions left more soldiers and civilians dead, including a teenage boy slain in a rocket strike east of Nahariya two years ago.

Growing concern over Hizbullah’s constant acquisition of Iranian and Syrian-supplied Katyusha rockets, not to mention various longer-range missiles and untold quantities of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and anti-ship rockets and other potent weapons, has been documented in these monthly updates ever since the May 2000 IDF evacuation of positions that were first captured in the 1978 Israeli “Litani” operation to push PLO fighters from south Lebanon. Military analysts say that Hizbullah had actually become one of the largest military forces in the region, with an arsenal larger than that of many area countries.

I had the privilege to lead a CFI tour to the Galilee region in May 2001—exactly one year after Israel evacuated its security buffer zone. While visiting a small military base next to the international border, the local IDF commander quietly warned me to be careful what I said since Hizbullah fighters within eyesight of the base monitored outdoor conversations with sophisticated long-range microphones. Then he whispered to me to casually gaze into a nearby grove of pine trees, where he said I would be able to see the tips of Katyusha rockets pointing ominously toward an Israeli kibbutz located down the hill from the base. Indeed, I could clearly see the weapons he mentioned, but I diplomatically did not point this out to my tour group.

MERELY A QUESTION OF WHEN

That Israeli leaders could not forever allow a burgeoning, jihad-crazed militia to openly operate right along their northern border was a given, especially since the rogue force is largely controlled by a radical Shiite regime in Tehran vowing to completely wipe Israel off of the regional map. As this reporter has made clear in public meetings around the world over the past several years, the only question was when the government would act.

As I noted in my talks, Israeli security sources had informed me that the original plan was to deal with the growing Hizbullah threat while US and UK forces were spearheading a multi-national attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power in nearby Iraq. I was told that then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had received White House approval for the planned operation. However, both American and Israeli officials underestimated the depth of support that the Iraqi dictator enjoyed on the Palestinian street, and thus the intensely angry response they would display against the American-led invasion. It was decided in both Washington and Jerusalem that the time was not ripe for a push against Hizbullah, lest Israel find itself fighting a two-front war in Lebanon and in the Palestinian zones (as it has ended up doing anyway in the current conflict!).

There were two core reasons that Sharon wanted to take on the Shiite militia in March 2003. The first was quite practical. The Israeli public was then fully prepared for possible Iraqi Scud strikes against civilian centers, meaning they were also prepared for the anticipated Hizbullah rocket blitz that we are currently enduring. Bomb shelters had been unlocked and cleaned out, gas masks refreshed and distributed, emergency services placed on full alert, Patriot missile batteries with their early warning radar systems set up near major population centers, etc. The second reason was that it was determined that both Syria and Iran would be preoccupied with the situation in Iraq, which is located smack dab between them, and therefore slow to come to Hizbullah’s aid, if at all. Still, in the event, both Sharon and George W. Bush agreed it was not the ideal time to add more fuel to the burgeoning Mideast fire.

I was told that the second timeframe for a pre-planned, well laid out operation to denude the increasingly potent Hizbullah militia was early 2005. Ariel Sharon would simply wait for the next Hizbullah provocation (the jihadist fighters had long before proved that they simply could not stand to go very long without launching some unprovoked assault) to let lose his world renowned IDF forces, especially his excellent Air Force. However, the veteran right-wing politician had failed to anticipate the depth of passionate internal division that his unilateral Gaza withdrawal plan—unveiled in early 2004—would generate in his own country. With talk of possible civil war reverberating throughout the small Jewish state, the decorated former general decided it was not the optimum time to launch a major operation that could easily escalate into a full war with Syria.

The third window of opportunity was determined to be soon after Israeli national elections this year. As the current conflict demonstrates, that plan has indeed been put into effect. This certainly does not mean that Israeli officials somehow invited Hizbullah agents to infiltrate across the border to capture and slaughter IDF soldiers on July 12th, but only that they were ready with a major “clean-out plan” when the next inevitable unprovoked Hizbullah attack took place, as it did on that day. In fact, my sources say IDF generals were fully ready to take on the threatening militia when it opened fire on Israeli positions as PM Olmert was preparing to meet with President Bush at the White House in May, but the Premier decided to desist at that time so as not to embarrass his sympathetic host.

SYRIA AND IRAN

The prospects that Syria and or/Iran might become directly involved in the raging Israel-Hizbullah conflict seemed to grow as the fighting continued into a third week. This was especially the case after Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora called for regional Muslim powers to “stand united with Lebanon in the face of the Israeli war criminals.” His virtual war cry came in the wake of the July 30th civilian deaths in Qana, which sparked rage throughout Lebanon and the entire Muslim world. The fuming Lebanese Sunni Muslim leader charged that Israel had “deliberately massacred our innocent martyrs” before hailing Sheik Nasrallah as a great Lebanese patriot.

Israeli government and army officials countered again that the IDF had no idea civilians were huddled in the building, which they repeated was being used by nearby Hizbullah rocket launchers as cover against return Israeli fire. They noted that the disaster in Qana came just two days after Hizbullah lobbed five longer-range rockets at Israeli civilian centers for the first time, striking the Jezreel Valley town of Afula nearly 40 miles south of Lebanon. Experts said the warheads were five times more explosive than the Katyushas fired up until then. That the rockets all landed right next to occupied apartment buildings and in nearby fields, and therefore did not kill anyone, was nothing short of miraculous, they added. The Shiite group labeled the Syrian-built rockets as the “Kybar-1” which refers to an early Islamic battle against the Jews of Arabia that was personally authorized by Muhammad. Hizbullah leaders stated again that even more potent rockets that can strike Tel Aviv remain in their deadly arsenal.

Israeli analysts had been warning well before the civilian slayings in Qana that Hassan Nasrallah was attempting to draw Syria directly into the conflict. With many leaders around the world criticizing him for launching his unprovoked cross border raid more than six years after IDF forces left south Lebanon, the Shiite Sheik was said to be hoping that his Syrian Alawite patrons would open up a second war front on the Golan Heights, which the world unanimously considers occupied Syrian territory. Street pressure on regional Muslim leaders to “do something” to thwart the Israeli campaign in Lebanon seemed to grow precipitously both inside Syria and around the Middle East in the wake of the Qana tragedy. Possibly indicating that he is considering direct intervention, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad strongly condemned the Israeli action as “state terrorism.” Israeli security analysts said that the mullahs who run Iran have been putting pressure on their Syrian ally to jump into the fray.

With most residents of Israel now under threat of Hizbullah rocket attack, and with most Lebanese leaders now at least publicly backing the radical Shiite cleric who has kidnapped their country, it does appear that an even more intense Mideast war may be on the horizon. It is good to recall the many promises of ultimate victory over evil that the God of Israel long ago issued to His Chosen People, which caused King David to proclaim his full confidence in His powerful heavenly Father: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against, me, my heart will not fear. Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.” (Psalm 27, 1-3).

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How does one really see the deeper informational side to Scripture? We recommend “footsteps” as the source for seeing the the truly functional details in Scripture.

G. Fruchtenbaum, Th.M., Ph.D.1982. Footsteps of Messiah - A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events. (Second ed. 2003)

THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE MESSIAH

A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events

Dr. Fruchtenbaum gathers the many pieces of the prophetic puzzle and places them in sequential order with the result summed up by Dr. Charles Ryrie in his foreword: "Those who read this book cannot help but be instructed and stimulated by his work." Footsteps is detailed, thorough and scholarly, yet written in a style that the average reader can easily understand. With a wealth of wisdom drawn from his Jewish background and extensive research, the author even tackles the "problem passages" to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire range of prophetic truth.

Over thirty years of teaching Eschatology since the original writing of this book has given Dr. Fruchtenbaum further reflections on some passages. He has added five new appendices to the book.

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Hardcover (880 pp.) ... $35.00
ISBN: 0-914863-09-6

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