GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 436

Iran And Trump

Lots Of Weapons Found

Part of the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah is that the terrorist leave southern Lebanon and let the Lebanese army take over. However, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) is finding a lot of weapons in the area which concerns them because Hezbollah can come right back to attack Israel if the Lebanese army can’t stop them. We see in a report from The Jerusalem Post that the problem is much bigger than anyone could have thought:

Ten weeks into the invasion of Lebanon and about three weeks into the ceasefire, the IDF said on Sunday that it has confiscated over 10,000 Hezbollah weapons in a large number of different districts of southern Lebanon.

More specifically, IDF Division 91 has operated in more than 10 different districts, while Division 98 has operated in at least six – though there probably was also some overlap between the two divisions.

Division 91 reached all the way to the Litani River and the Saluki parts of southern Lebanon which are deeper into the country.

The deception used by Hezbollah is high since the IDF is finding the stockpiles in regular looking homes:

“We are in a weapons storage area for Radwan [inside a village civilian house]. You can see hundreds of vests, mortars, mines… all the weapons they need. An operative could show up here in jeans and sandals, receive all of his war supplies, a map, and a plan of attack for which he was pre-trained,” he continued.

Basically, Hezbollah can say they’ve left an area but leave behind soldiers dressed as civilians who can then attack again. So it is yet another trust but verify situation now. Israel is abiding by the ceasefire terms, but is concerned about the Lebanese holding up their part of the agreement:

At the end of last week, the IDF started to withdraw from portions of southern Lebanon as part of its commitment for a full withdrawal by around January 26.

IDF sources have said that the Lebanese army is starting to take control of the areas where the IDF withdraws from, though it remains unclear whether that military will be able to hold on to those areas versus Hezbollah once the full IDF withdrawal has occurred and Jerusalem's attention is elsewhere.

Hezbollah is already trying to break the agreement:

To date, though the IDF has killed as many as 40 Hezbollah fighters who it said were trying to sneak into southern Lebanon or prepare to carry out other ceasefire violations, mostly Hezbollah has respected the ceasefire.

Acting on prior intelligence, troops also raided a known terrorist meeting point in the Beit Hanoun area. The operations, which involved cooperation with the IAF, resulted in the elimination of dozens of Hamas terrorists and the arrest of additional terror suspects - a larger quantity of Hamas fighters in a short time than the IDF is generally getting in this time period when large scale fighting is less frequent.

In the neighboring Beit Lahiya area, IDF soldiers located and dismantled large quantities of weapons, including explosives and dozens of grenades. These efforts are aimed to curtail the operational capabilities of terrorist groups in the region.

Will US Attack Iran?

We know that President-elect Donald Trump is no friend of Iran and isn’t going to let them have nuclear weapons. In an article from the Jewish News Syndicate we’re told that Trump is thinking about taking military action to do it, but might help Israel do it instead:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is weighing two main options to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including preventative airstrikes, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing four people familiar with the plans.

Striking Iran directly is being given a great deal of weightiness:

The military option was under “more serious review” in the wake of the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria and Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, according to the report.

The US could help Israel to do it as well:

The first option, the WSJ stressed, involves increased U.S. military pressure on Iran, and the selling of advanced weapons to Jerusalem, such as bunker-busting bombs, that would enhance its capacity to hit Tehran’s formidable nuclear facilities, some of which are reportedly located deep underground.

Some think that the US can talk Iran down:

The alternative involves American conflict with the Islamic Republic, directly threatening the Iranian ayatollahs with the military force. According to the WSJ, the administration would seek a diplomatic solution before resorting to force. Trump’s Iran policy during his first term focused on economic sanctions.

All plans were in the early stages, the report added.

Trump acknowledges that the situation is fluid and unpredictable:

“Anything can happen,” Trump said in an interview with Time on Thursday when asked about war with Iran. “It’s a very volatile situation.”

During Trump’s recent electoral campaign, he was informed by U.S. intelligence officials about an Iranian plot to assassinate him.

During the election campaign Iran was meddling and Trump and Netanyahu both agree on how dangerous Iran is:

The “continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months,” according to intelligence officials, and “law-enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference,” stated at the time Steven Cheung, communications director for the campaign.

Since he won the election in November, Trump held three phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after which the Israeli premier said that he and his American counterpart “see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in all its components, and the danger posed by it.”

Iran Is A Nuclear Threat

At least that’s what the many in the international community is saying, so it’s not just the US and Israel:

On Thursday, Britain, France and Germany informed the United Nations Security Council of their willingness to reimpose “snap back” international sanctions on Iran over that country’s illicit nuclear program

“Iran must de-escalate its nuclear program to create the political environment conducive to meaningful progress and a negotiated solution,” the U.N. ambassadors of the so-called E3 countries wrote in a Dec. 6 letter to the Security Council.

Those monitoring the nuclear program say all the bad signs are there:

The threat comes after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi confirmed that Tehran has in recent weeks sharply increased its uranium enrichment.

“Today the agency is announcing that the production capacity is increasing dramatically, of the 60% [enriched] inventory,” said Grossi at the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain on Dec. 6.

The Islamic Republic already has enough 60%-enriched uranium for four nuclear weapons in principle, should Tehran decide to enrich it further to the roughly 90% level needed, according to Reuters.

Israel is already doing what it can to slow the Iranian program down:

In October, Israeli airstrikes destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, according to Axios.

Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.

If Trump is serious, Israel sees an opening to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat:

Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Personally I see Trump giving Israel the help and military support it needs to do what I see as fulfilling the prophecies in Jeremiah 49 where the IDF takes out the nuclear capacities in southern Iran. And I see the US striking and taking out the other nuclear sites further north in Iran. Buckle your seat belts. In the next few weeks things can get very, very heated and explosive.