God’s News In The News – Special Edition One Hundred Seventy-Seven

Israel At War – Day 6

Information Leads To Many Questions

What Really Happened?

Now that we 6 days removed from the terrorist attacks, slowly those Israelis involved in the attacks are getting out their stories. And not surprisingly, they describe tales of raw terror mixed with fear and hopelessness. Stories of still missing loved ones who thought they were going to peaceful party and ended up running for their lives, becoming a hostage or worse, being one of the 260 killed. Their accounts are narratives of a harrowing ordeal, one that, in some minds should never have happened in the first place, but I’ll address this later. For now, I’ll share some of the accounts found on the web site theepochtimes.com. In an article written by Dan M. Berger we hear from the mother of one of the still missing whose name is Ron Sarfaty:

"My daughter went to a party in southern Israel on Friday night [Oct. 6]," Erez Sarfaty told the Israeli Epoch Times of her daughter Ron. "She stayed in touch with us throughout the night, updating us on what was happening with her.

"At 8:30 on Saturday morning, she called us to tell us that there were shootings."

"She was with her friend. They went to the party with five friends—she, her friend, and three other friends. When she called at 8:30 in the morning, she was with her friend. They told us that they were lying on the floor and hiding and that shots were being fired at them.

Ms. Sarfaty goes on to talk about how her daughter and friends didn’t grasp what was happening:

"Neither they nor we fully understood the gravity of the situation. We thought it was something far away from them. Her friend told me, 'Don't worry, tonight I will bring her back home.'

"In fact, at 8:45, that was our last communication with her. Since then, we haven't received any information from any official source in the country."

Updated Information

According to the article Sarfaty knows that of the five, 2 have been kidnapped, while one has returned home, but her daughter and her friend Idan Haramaty are still among the missing. Ms. Sarfaty added this after she went to the nearby Kibbutz Be’eri, where the military turned her back to keep her safe as the fighting was still going on:

We are sitting at home, using the phone and going through, trying to find our daughter and knowing nothing.

As the article went on, it also gave us the experience of another person, Ori Sabah, who lived in the Kibbitz Be’eri located 3 miles northeast of the part or rave mentioned earlier. Sabah took shelter like many, in their safe rooms where they go when a rocket attack comes. This time was very different as we hear how he describe things in this quote from the article:

"I will say it simply. We went through a slaughter. They slaughtered us," Ori Sabah, a Be'eri resident, told the Israeli Epoch Times.

"They came to slaughter us. There are a large number of casualties, [and] hostages. I have no words. The closest thing is the Night of the Broken Glass."

Mr. Sabah referred to the 1938 Nazi-instigated riots against Jews across Germany, also called Kristallnacht, from the shattered glass from broken windows outside thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues afterward.

"I was personally in the safe room with my wife and four young children," Mr. Sabah said. Most kibbutz homes have a safe room designed primarily for safety during the frequent Hamas rocket attacks.

"I have a one-and-a-half-year-old son, and my eldest daughter is 10 years old. I stood by the safe room's door with a knife, hearing gunfire all the time.

"Until about three or four in the afternoon, there was not a single soldier in the kibbutz. There was no army presence, nothing."

Israel's army, attacked at their bases and overwhelmed by reports of dozens of Hamas attacks inside Israeli territory, couldn't come to the rescue fast enough at this and other kibbutzim.

"We were alone, abandoned there. They entered rooms, homes, opened safe room doors with screwdrivers, with hammers, throwing grenades there. They slaughtered people. They abducted them."

A Close Call

Tragically, others in the kibbutz were not as fortunate as Sabah and his family as detailed by the father of 4:

"In the kibbutz's WhatsApp groups, it was chaos. People crying, begging, screaming that they were entering their safe rooms, slaughtering them. Horrible, horrible.”

Sabah protected his family much like so many others there:

"I think because of the location of my house, built on a kind of side street, they always missed it. The closest they got was to our pergola. They were speaking in Arabic, shouting, firing, going wild. At some point, I put my hand on the door.

"My wife's brother fought with them. They tried to open his safe room door. They burned down his entire house. He struggled with them—trying to open while he closed it. He held the handle from the inside. They survived a slaughter at the last minute.

"At some point, the terrorists realized they couldn't open people's safe rooms. Because whoever is inside the safe room has an advantage over those outside. The power is with those inside. So they began setting houses on fire to force people out, and then when they came out, they simply shot them.”

He reiterated his earlier assessment of the attack:

"You still don't understand what happened there. When I said 'Night of Broken Glass,' I wasn't exaggerating. That's what it was. They came to slaughter us."

This Time Was Different

Those who live near the Gaza Strip have had terrorist attacks before, but according to one resident, who chose to only be called by her first name of Oshrat, the world needs to know that this attack was different. And she should know since she’s lived through many other attacks. Her are her own words about it starting with how her children are coping:

"Since then, a lot of news has arrived, friends of the children have been murdered, some are missing. My friends as well."

(Her children)Are completely shocked. They are very focused on social media, all day on their cell phones, looking for bits of information.

"Many parents of their friends have been killed. They move between silence to crying and rage. They move in between those feelings. We allow them to do that, of course; there is nothing we can do about it."

She added that this is unlike anything she’s experienced before:

"You can't compare it to anything. I've been in situations where terrorists infiltrated our settlement in Gush Katif several times. I hid my children several times, but what happened now is something crazy that we've never experienced.

"These are children who went out to spend time at a party and were massacred. People who were sitting in their homes were kidnapped and murdered. And it's important that the world will know about it because I don't know if they manage to perceive it."

More Troubling News

While the toll on individuals is unspeakable, reports about Israel being warned about the attacks are cropping up. According to a The Times Of Israel report yesterday, an Egypt intelligence official warned Israel about something big coming out of the Gaza Strip as much as 10 days before. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies the report calling it fake news. I have to be honest, this sounds a lot like what happened here after 9/11/2001 when reports of middle eastern men going to flight schools to only fly planes and nothing else. It is still early, but if Israel knew to watch for this attack and instead focused their attention on the West Bank instead, Netanyahu may win the war and then lose his job. He had a tenuous coalition before the attacks so politically he would be walking on thin ice while leading the war efforts. Here is a quote from The Times (see https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/) article explaining the situation:

For Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s eyes are never very far away. Surveillance drones buzz constantly in the skies. The highly secured border is awash with security cameras and soldiers on guard. Intelligence agencies work sources and cyber capabilities to draw out information.

But Israel’s eyes appeared to have been closed in the lead-up to the surprise onslaught by the Hamas terror group, which broke through Israeli border barriers and sent hundreds of terrorists into Israel to carry out a brazen attack that killed over 700 people and wounded over 2,000.

Are there chinks in Israel’s intelligence armor? The article continues on that question:

Israel’s intelligence agencies have gained an aura of invincibility over the decades because of a string of achievements. Israel has foiled plots seeded in the West Bank, allegedly hunted down Hamas operatives in Dubai and has been accused of killing Iranian nuclear scientists in the heart of Iran. Even when their efforts have stumbled, agencies like the Mossad, Shin Bet and military intelligence have maintained their mystique.

But the weekend’s assault, which caught Israel off guard on a major Jewish holiday, plunges that reputation into doubt and raises questions about the country’s readiness in the face of a weaker but determined foe. Over 48 hours after the start of the attack, Hamas terrorists continued to battle Israeli forces inside Israeli territory, and over 100 Israelis were in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

A Big Failure?

A former national security advisor thinks so:

“This is a major failure,” said Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This operation actually proves that the [intelligence] abilities in Gaza were no good.”

Amidror declined to offer an explanation for the failure, saying lessons must be learned when the dust settles.

Most of Israel’s leadership say there will be a time for investigations, but that will come later:

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman, acknowledged the army owes the public an explanation. But he said now is not the time. “First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.

Some say it is too early to pin the blame solely on an intelligence failure. They point to a wave of low-level violence in the West Bank that shifted some military resources there and the political chaos roiling the country over steps by Netanyahu’s far-right government to overhaul the judiciary. The controversial plan has threatened the cohesion of the IDF, seen as the people’s army.

But the apparent lack of prior knowledge of Hamas’s plot will likely be seen as a prime culprit in the chain of events that led to the deadliest attack against Israelis in decades.

Closer To Home

As if we needed more disconcerting news, tomorrow Friday the 13th of October is being called The Friday of the Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas leader and founding member Khaled Mashal. He made his announcement on YouTube but the video is no longer available there now. It was however, saved and can be viewed here: (RAW AI TRANSLATION) Hamas Leader Khalid Mashal's Chilling Call for Global Muslim Uprising on "Friday of Al-Aqsa Flood" (rumble.com)

According to the full account of what was said and reported by The Gateway Pundit (see Hamas Leader and Founding Member Khaled Mashal Calls for Global Muslim Uprising, Asking for Muslim's Blood and Souls to be Sacrificed for Palestine This Upcoming 'Friday of Al-Aqsa Flood' (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft) according to a post on X/Twitter by a former Muslim and convert to Christianity the address calls for Muslims around the world to do this:

1. To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood”, he said this will send a message of rage to Zionists and to America

2. He asked for financial help from all Muslims around the world; to help with their money, he called it “Financial Jihad”. He asked Muslims to give to the fighters of Gaza in order to compensate them for the destruction

3.He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza

4.The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa.

He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means. He said: This is the time for Jihad to be applied on the ground rather than just in theory. He asked the Mujahedeen to go in long caravans to spill their blood on the land of Palestine.

These are his final words: Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls [to be sacrificed for Palestine].

What are we to do? Well, be careful and attentive to your surroundings and avoid any obvious rallies supporting this. Remember we are to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents which essentially means we are at the very least to use Holy Spirit led wisdom for where we go, what we do and when we do it. We are not given a spirit of fear, but that sound mind should be a part of any decision we make tomorrow. We might also want to pray for the peace and safety of America as well as that of Jerusalem.