Israel hits 250 Iran, Lebanon targets in major assault

Israel hits 250 Iran, Lebanon targets in major assault

Joshua Marks

The Israeli Air Force struck more than 250 targets simultaneously in Iran and Lebanon over the weekend, the military said on Saturday night.

More than 100 sites belonging to the “Iranian terrorist regime” were hit, according to the Israel Defense Forces, including ballistic missile production facilities, ready-to-launch missiles, air defense systems, drones and missile storage facilities. 

In a statement later that night, the IDF said its air force had completed a third wave of “wide-scale” strikes across Tehran, targeting dozens of additional terrorist infrastructure sites. Further details were provided on Sunday morning, with the IDF saying that the strikes targeted temporary command centers and weapons production sites in the capital.

“As part of the strikes, the IDF has deepened the degradation of the regime’s weapons production infrastructure, targeting dozens of weapons storage and production sites,” the IDF said, noting that the temporary command centers were hit after the IDF in recent days identified the Iranian regime had begun relocating its command centers to mobile units after most of its command centers were struck by the IAF over the past month.

Israeli warplanes also struck the regime’s ballistic missile production and storage facilities, aerial defense systems and observation posts, according to the statement.

In Lebanon, over 170 Hezbollah terror targets were struck, with the IDF noting that since the start of targeted operations across the border, more than 800 terrorists from the Iranian proxy have been eliminated from the air, sea and ground.

Jerusalem launched “Operation Roaring Lion” against the Iranian regime in coordination with Washington’s “Operation Epic Fury” on Feb. 28, conducting continuous airstrikes targeting senior leadership, the regime’s missile and military capabilities, its nuclear program, and its security apparatus of repression.

Hezbollah launched rockets and suicide drones at Israel on March 2 in retaliation for the targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during the opening strikes of “Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury.” In response to the violation of the U.S.-brokered Nov. 27, 2024, truce with Lebanon, Israel carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah and ordered troops to seize additional positions in Southern Lebanon to stop cross-border attacks.

“Contrary to the declaration by the Lebanese government earlier this year, Hezbollah is still operating and conducting attacks from Southern Lebanon,” IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said on Saturday. “If the Lebanese government will not disarm Hezbollah, the IDF will. We will not allow Hezbollah to rearm, and we will continue operating in order to protect our civilians on our northern border.”

Four IDF divisions are operating in Southern Lebanon to expand ground operations and eliminate Hezbollah terrorists, the military said on Saturday. Troops from the 36th Division located weapons and killed dozens of terror operatives, while Golani Brigade troops dismantled more than 100 terrorist infrastructure sites and over 10 operational shafts. Forces from the 7th Brigade discovered a cache of RPGs, mines and machine guns.

“The IDF will continue to deepen its operations against the Iranian terrorist regime and the Hezbollah terrorist organization simultaneously, in order to remove threats against the civilians of the State of Israel,” the military said.

Iran’s president slams IRGC, warns economy on verge of collapse – report

Iran’s president slams IRGC, warns economy on verge of collapse – report

World Israel News Staff

Iran’s civil and military leaders are reportedly clashing over the handling of the war, according to an Iran Internationalreport citing sources familiar with the dispute.

The sources say that there is a growing rift between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Ahmad Vahidi regarding the regime’s future as the war with the United States and Israel enters its second month.

Pezeshkian has reportedly warned that continued escalation and attacks on neighboring countries could push Iran’s economy toward collapse within three to four weeks if no ceasefire is reached.

The sources cited in the report also said that Pezeshkian criticized the Revolutionary Guards’ approach and pressed for greater authority to be returned to the civilian administration.

Vahidi is said to have rejected Pezeshkian’s call for the IRGC to give greater control to civil authorities, while blaming the Iranian government for failing to carry out structural reforms before the war broke out.

This is not the first time Pezeshkian has publicly signaled his concern over the stability of the regime.

According to the report, Iran’s economy – which was already under heavy strain prior to the outbreak of the war – is showing signs of continued decline, with disruptions at ATMs and online banking systems.

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YouVersion CEO: The Best AI Models Misquote the Bible at Least 15% of the Time

YouVersion CEO: The Best AI Models Misquote the Bible at Least 15% of the Time

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

YouVersion, the most widely used Bible app in the world, with over one billion downloads, is refusing to let artificial intelligence answer spiritual questions — and the reason is damning. Bobby Gruenewald, founder and CEO of YouVersion, has gone public, warning that the best AI models on the market misquote the Bible at least 15% of the time, and  some err as much as 60% of the time.

This technical glitch has grave spiritual implications. The Torah commands lo tosif al ha-davar — “you shall not add to the word” (Deuteronomy 4:2). Yet AI systems are inventing verses, altering punctuation and wording, and presenting fabricated text as authentic..

Jeremy Hodes of Evangelical Missions Quarterly documented ChatGPT inventing a verse and labeling it John 5:5: “We know that we shall behold a Mocker of Defamers; and, as the defamers, we are of the mockers.” The actual John 5:5 describes a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years. Fox News reported another fabrication, attributed to Jesus: “there is no man or woman.” No such verse exists anywhere in the Christian or Jewish canon.

YouVersion uses AI internally to accelerate coding and streamline workflow. Gruenewald utilizes the technology, describing himself as an early AI adopter. But he has drawn a sharp line between back-office automation and putting AI in front of a billion users to answer questions about God. “When it comes to answering life’s most important questions and trying to give direction from God’s Word,” he said, “we need it to be better in order to rely on it.”

He added: “The best model with the best performance, with the most popular versions of the Bible that are most indexed, misquotes Scripture at least 15% of the time. Some of them as much as 60% of the time.”

Gruenewald said that YouVersion has privately challenged AI developers to improve how their models handle Scripture.  He has told them that if they can consistently quote the Bible accurately, YouVersion will help them gain access to reliable biblical texts. So far, no model has cleared that bar.

The broader Christian world is moving in the opposite direction. Churches are using AI to draft sermons. Platforms allow users to “chat” with biblical characters. Prayer apps are being powered by algorithms. Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Ark Encounter, put it plainly in Harbingers Daily: “AI can be a useful tool, but it should never replace careful study of the Scriptures for yourself. Remember, it is programmed by fallible, sinful humans.”

Gloo, a faith-oriented technology firm, is attempting to build guardrails — evaluating AI systems against standards like theological integrity and human flourishing. The effort is serious, but it remains upstream of the problem. The models generating Scripture responses are general-purpose systems trained on vast swaths of the internet, not curated biblical texts reviewed by scholars.

For Gruenewald, the technology may get there eventually. “If we ever do fully adapt AI, it will be because we feel very confident that it can be done safely and be done with a level of accuracy and integrity,” he said. But “eventually” is not now.

Younger generations already turn to chatbots before they turn to clergy. Most users have not memorized Scripture. They will not catch a fabricated verse. They will not know when a comma has shifted the meaning of a passage that took scholars centuries to translate. They will simply read what the machine tells them, assume it is accurate, and carry that error forward.

It should be emphasized that Gruenewald is not telling people to avoid AI entirely. He is saying that speed and popularity do not outweigh fidelity to the text. That is not a conservative position. That is the only defensible position.

Sources: US preparing ground operation in Iran, Washington Post reports

Sources: US preparing ground operation in Iran, Washington Post reports

Sweden Herald

The Pentagon is preparing a ground operation in Iran, The Washington Post reports.

The operation, which has not yet been approved by President Donald Trump, is expected to last for several weeks, according to the newspaper's sources.

The operation may include raids near the Strait of Hormuz, but is reportedly not expected to constitute a full-scale invasion. Planning is said to be well advanced.

"Publicly, the enemy is sending messages of negotiation and dialogue while secretly planning a ground attack," reads a statement from Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf published by the state news agency Irna.

He adds that Iran is “waiting for the American soldiers.”

The U.S. has been sending more troops to the Middle East in the past week. For example, the amphibious ship USS Tripoli - with around 2,500 Marines - recently arrived in the region.

Terry James: Chaos, Calamity or Comfort?

Chaos, Calamity or Comfort?

Terry James

It seems sometimes that Americans, particularly Christian Americans, are anesthetized to things going on around them.

Things like the attempted takeover by the dark spiritual forces behind Marxism and worse don’t seem to register on Christian Americans’ worry meters—at least not to the degree it registers on my own meter of concern.

Some will say Christians are confident that God is always in complete control, so they just don’t worry about these things. But the truth is that most American Christians are complacent; they’re not interested in thinking about the evil around us.

Even what’s going on in the Middle East, the war with Iran, and the threat closing the Strait of Hormuz presents doesn’t seem to heighten the level of worry that World War III or, at the very least, portentous economic crisis is in view.

And the Church–all who are in God’s family—for the most part doesn’t seem to have an idea of what Israel being at the center of all this worrisome news means. There is no concern about how it all relates to Bible prophecy among those who should be most aware of and alert to the fact that the world is teetering on the edge of a time Jesus called the worst that would ever be.

Yet this is another sign of where we are on God’s prophetic timeline, in my view as we look out across that horizon of “things to come,” as Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost titled his great volume on Bible prophecy.

As I’ve written many times, I believe Jesus described exactly the condition of humanity as it will be when He next catastrophically intervenes into the affairs of fallen humankind. The Lord’s “days of Lot” prophecy (Luke 17:28–30) says it will be business as usual, like it was when Lot and his family were removed from Sodom by the angels.

The Lord indicated that business and life in general itself were ongoing, even doing well, at that time, while the subsurface society and culture in that twin-cities area were as wicked as when God intervened previously in the “days of Noah” (Luke 17:26–27).

This is what we who “watch,” as commanded by our Lord (Mark 13: 37 and Luke 21: 28), should expect the world around us to look like at the twinkling-of-an-eye moment when He will again intervene as He did in those earlier times.

One of my frustrations continues to be that the Christians who say we who hold to the clearly taught, pre-Trib view of Rapture are wrong and that we’re leading believers astray. These writers, preachers, teachers, and others most often imply, or even say outright, that all the troubles we see around us means the following: Either the world—including all believers in Jesus Christ—is about to enter the Tribulation, or we’ve already entered it. Some believe we’re already engaged in World War III.

These aren’t looking for Jesus Christ to rescue believers before the Tribulation as Paul taught; they’re looking for chaos, calamity, and—to be frank—the Antichrist rather than for the True Christ.

The following article presents the view that the world is on the brink of Tribulation but offers no hope of Heaven’s rescue for the Christian.

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