GNITN – Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 41
Mixed Signals Given

Body of Hostage Found

It may not be the best news coming out of the operation in the Al-Shifa hospital, but the IDF has recovered the body of one hostage near the Al-Shifa hospital. She was a 64 year old cancer patient who lost her husband in the October 7th terrorist attacks before she was abducted. We read more on this in a report from The Times Of Israel (see https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-november-16-2023/?utm_source=article_hpsidebar&utm_medium=desktop_site) :

The family of Yehudit Weiss, the hostage whose body was recovered in Gaza, begs officials to bring home the rest of the captives being held by terror groups in the Strip.

“It’s important for us to say that we fought, we battled in every possible way to bring mom, grandma Yehudit home,” says her daughter-in-law Zemer. “For us, it is too late, but it is important for us to support all the families of the hostages, and to tell the world, bring them home now, so that for them it is not too late, like it was for us.”

Her son Omer says they had “hope, a lot of hope, that she would come home. We wished, we hoped, and sadly for us, it is too late.”

Her children say they only just completed the 30-day mourning period for their father, Shmulik, who was murdered on October 7 by Hamas, when they got the news about their mother.

The families of the remaining hostages want more done to get their loved ones back and gathered together is another protest to get them released.

Advancing To The Next Stage

According to many sources, the IDF is moving into the next phase of rooting out and eliminating Hamas now that they are in the Al-Shifa hospital and exposing just what was being done there. We read more about this in an article from i24news.tv (see https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/defense/1700153368-israeli-defense-minister-announces-advancing-to-the-next-stage-in-gaza-strip) :

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced on Thursday a “next phase” of the operation in Gaza, during a situational assessment overviewing the military’s progress, particularly with the latest activity in the Al-Shifa Hospital complex.

"I arrived today at the headquarters of the division whose special forces also operate inside the Shifa hospital,” Gallant began his situational assessment alongside the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Deputy Chief of Staff and other senior officers.

The report goes on to tell us that they are getting closer and closer to returning the hostages:

“The forces are working precisely, determinedly, decisively, with a very high coordination between the air, sea, and land forces, accompanied by a very strong and encompassing intelligence,” he added.

"The more we expand this operation, increase the pressure on Hamas and erode more headquarters, damage more tunnels, eliminate more operatives, and bring down more heads of organizations, the greater the chance of returning our abductees, because this enemy only understands power and we are explaining what power is.”

Mixed Signals Sent

In our last video we heard from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying they won’t join the war in a conventional sense, today we here from a military leader in Iran something else as seen in this article from The Times Of Israel (see https://www.timesofisrael.com/quds-force-chief-iran-will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-aid-hamas-war-against-israel/) :

Iran will do “whatever it takes” to assist Hamas in its war against Israel, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force told the head of Hamas’s military wing in a letter published by Iranian state media on Thursday.

“We stand by our fraternal pledge that unites us and we assure you that we will do whatever it takes in this historic battle,” Esmail Qaani wrote in a letter to Muhammad Deif.

Qaani goes on to note that the Muslim world is uniting to help Hamas:

“Your brothers in the resistance axis stand united with you and will not allow the enemy to reach its dirty goals in Gaza and Palestine,” Qaani said in the letter, referring to a network of terror groups backed by Iran, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“The resistance has clearly demonstrated the weakness and fragility of the usurping Zionist entity and practically proved that it is weaker than a spider’s web,” Qaani wrote, hailing “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” — Hamas’s name for the October 7 massacres that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. Terrorists also seized over 240 hostages in the deadliest attack in the Jewish state’s history.

Qaani claimed the region “will not be as it was before Al-Aqsa Flood” and that the Muslim world is “rallying around the choice of jihad” as a result.

What this commander is saying is more in line with that other leaders in the Muslim world have said and I believe that right now there will be more aggressive attacks coming. I’m not happy about it, but if this is what it takes to eliminate the constant threats of terrorism Israel has had to endure for decades now then so be it. His letter went as far to state that Iran will allow Israel to reach “it’s dirty goals” of defeating Hamas.

Hezbollah Not Interested In Increased War

According to a person who was in security for Hezbollah at one time, the terrorist group is not wanting to increase their attack levels as seen in this article from The Times Of Israel (see https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/ex-security-official-in-lebanon-says-hezbollah-not-interested-in-wider-war-with-israel/) :

A former top Lebanese security official who has served as a conduit between the United States and Hezbollah says that, at this stage, the Lebanese terror group is not interested in widening its limited cross-border conflict with Israel.

Abbas Ibrahim, a former head of Lebanon’s General Security, says that as long as Hamas is able to confront the IDF in the Gaza Strip, “the situation will remain at the current level of tension” on the Lebanese front.

Again, these mixed signals abound, but there was a caveat added as seen in this quote from Ibrahim:

However, the situation could escalate inadvertently, he says: “If we continue with this degree of tension it will certainly lead to bad calculations and a war will happen.”

Ibrahim says US officials had passed messages through him to Hezbollah urging it “not to drag Lebanon into this war,” including during a visit to Beirut last week by Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden.

Hezbollah has not sent messages of its own to the US in response, Ibrahim says.

Summing These Signals Up

While I originally called these mixed signals, put together there is actually a cohesive thread, not just from these quotes, but from words spoken from the beginning. The terrorist regimes and their backers are willing to let Hamas go it alone for the most part but will step in when they see Hamas being decimated. We need to quit drinking the cool aid of those who say that the defeat of Hamas is all that will happen now. The Ezekiel 38 coalition doesn’t want to have to step in and may stay away even if Israel prevails against all the surrounding terrorist nations currently aligned against them. I believe that may just bide their time and plan the next war, getting Russia and others lined up knowing that Israel will be harder to take down if current results show a larger capacity for war than ever before. In this way, the Psalm 83 war really will set up the War of Gog and Magog. I do have to admit that all this prophetic armchair talk can all be made moot, but I do know this, God is moving these chess pieces in ways we can’t possibly grasp. And that’s a good thing.