GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 370

Iran’s Day Is Coming

Decision On Attack Coming

Israel’s response to the recent Iranian attack the Security Cabinet will vote today on how they will respond as we read in a report from the Jerusalem News Syndicate:

Israel’s Security Cabinet was set to convene on Thursday to vote on a proposal to authorize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to determine the country’s response to last week’s Iranian missile attack.

Leadership has stated over and over again that the attack would be a strong one:

Jerusalem has vowed a significant retaliation for Tehran’s second-ever direct attack on the Jewish state, in which more than 180 ballistic missiles were fired in two waves on the evening of Oct. 1.

Iran’s attack was almost completely rebuffed:

The Israeli military, with the assistance of the United States and Jordan, shot down most of the missiles, with the sole casualty of the attack being a Palestinian man from Gaza who was struck by missile debris near Jericho in the Jordan Valley.

The Israel Defense Minister said that Iran will not have a warning on the response:

On Wednesday, Gallant said Israel’s response “will be powerful, precise and above all—surprising,” adding that the Islamic Regime “will not understand what happened and how it happened.”

Gallant spoke to the military’s intel division and added this about the Iranian attack:

Speaking during a visit to Unit 9900 of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate, which is responsible for gathering visual intelligence, Gallant also said that while the Iranian attack had been “aggressive,” the missiles “failed because they were not precise.”

He continued: “The air force was unharmed—all the runways are operational, our activities are ongoing, not a single aircraft was damaged, not a single soldier or civilian was harmed.”

He then stated that such is not the case for the IDF:

On the other hand, he said, “When we look at your abilities, the abilities of the IDF, of the Intelligence Directorate, of the air force and the entire [security] establishment—you are accurate and powerful. As we have shown until now in this war and in all arenas: Whoever attacks Israel will pay a price.”

Since Gallant hinted that the details of what the attack on Iran and when it will happen is a secret we can’t know with any certainty more than what anyone in the know is telling us. However, from what we do hear it should be very strong and no one including Iran will doubt the message it will send.

Sinwar’s Ego

According to an article from WND.com Arab and even Hamas sources they are concerned about the very reclusive terrorist, Yahya Sinwar who they say is quite alive still:

Being one of the only terrorist leaders left standing – or perhaps crawling in his tunnel would be more appropriate imagery – Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has apparently become so metaphorically drunk on his own power – and apparent resistance to airstrikes – he has instructed his minions to resume suicide bombings of Israelis.

Pushing suicide bombers isn’t exactly a new trend from Hamas, but it is Sinwar’s ego that concerns other terrorist leaders:

Considering Israeli intelligence thought the architect of the so-called "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation on Oct. 7 had been killed – an assessment U.S. intelligence did not happen to share – and prompted by his disappearance from view for a while, when even the notes he passed to underlings seemed to dry up, Sinwar has reportedly reappeared swinging.

The Wall Street Journal ran a report citing Arab and Hamas officials, revealing there were concerns about Sinwar's "megalomania" from top terrorist leaders, which included both Khaled Mashal, and prior to his elimination in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in Tehran, Ismail Haniyeh. Arab intelligence officials say he sent a directive to a senior operative: "Now is the time to revive suicide bombings," according to the Journal.

Right after that, if we recall, his command was heard loud and clear:

A few days later, an unassuming, bespectacled Palestinian man walked around Tel Aviv streets with a backpack filled with explosives. His bomb detonated prematurely, killing only himself, but it was a stark reminder of the potential to return to the dark days of the second intifada between Sept. 2000 and Feb. 2005, when Israelis didn't know if they could get on a bus, go to a restaurant or a nightclub for fear of being caught up in another suicide bombing.

Part of the terrorists concerns was the optics of going back to those kind of attacks:

There was apparently some unease among the Hamas leaders about a return to tactic of suicide bombing, and they preferred to eschew it, thinking it might make the organization a political pariah. Despite the catastrophic implications – both moral and physical – of what a widespread campaign of suicide bombings would mean, it is possible to see some logic in it. Israelis' opinion of Hamas is already subterranean, such was the barbarity and viciousness of the Oct. 7 massacre. And the IDF is clearly doing all it can to take Sinwar out, like it has Haniyeh and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah before him. From a wider, more Western perspective, it isn't clear how much of a pariah Hamas will become for reinstituting such a tactic. Israel and Israelis are already seen as fair game, evidenced by the denials of the atrocities of a year ago.

Sinwar is seemingly giving up on any hopes of a true Palestinian state and deciding it is time to annihilate Israel altogether:

As with most groups there are individuals within it who view the overall strategy and the tactics needed to realize it in disparate ways. Sinwar is, and always has been, a hardliner, an uncompromising, soulless and extremely violent man, who sees maximal civilian casualties as a way to get Israel to first bend, and ultimately break. He seems to have won out against less radical elements, who wish to retain a patina of political legitimacy in the hopes of one day establishing a Palestinian state.

"Under Sinwar, Hamas can be expected to be a much clearer-cut, hard-line fundamentalist organization," said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, who wrote a book on the group, and was quoted in the Journal article.

Sinwar is more of a traditional warmonger and now doesn’t appear to want or care about a ceasefire deal or moderating his views or approach:

The communications between Sinwar in Gaza and Meshal and Haniyeh in Doha, the latter two dismissively known as the "hotel guys," reveals a fascinating portrait of a fundamental difference of approach to the pursuit of Palestinian statehood. Sinwar, the tough, grizzled, and uncompromising former prisoner, living among his people in Gaza vs. the political leaders with tailored suits, gilded hotel rooms, and a comfortable life. While both Sinwar and Haniyeh drew Hamas closer to Iran – not an obvious or easy move – the latter was concerned that the former would be too extreme to win the backing of more moderate Arab states.

The article confirms what we suspected early on a year ago:

As for Oct. 7, Haniyeh and his coterie in Qatar were not fully aware of what Sinwar and Hamas' commando units had in store for southern Israel and Israelis on that black Sabbath. While they publicly praised the attack – famously bowing down in their expensive suits on the plush carpet in Haniyeh's hotel room – privately, there were serious misgivings about Sinwar. Haniyeh was supposedly warmer to the potential of a ceasefire deal to release hostages and end the war; Sinwar, in a position he still holds today, is uninterested in that prospect.

And that is why the coveted hostage/ceasefire deal is likely not going to happen now no matter how hopeful anyone is. The problem is Sinwar and he holds the hostages. Unless he is taken out of the equation negotiations are mostly futile. Talk as they say is cheap and in this case that’s all these negotiators have. Christians, however, are the only ones where talk isn’t cheap, but powerful to the taking down of strongholds. Believers hold the key now and we shouldn’t avoid or discount it.