While other incidents happened on Thursday and Friday, the real insanity of the week began when Hezbollah fired a poorly aimed rocket which landed on a group of Druze schoolchildren in Majdal Shams, along the Golan Heights in Israel.
It was as bad as you can imagine. Twelve children were killed, and many others were wounded.
At first, the terrorist group celebrated the murder of the children, which was the worst death toll since October 7. But once they realized that the children were Druze and not Jewish, they immediately took it back. “Look what we did!” was rapidly changed to “Actually, it wasn’t us! It must have been the Iron Dome misfiring.” But there is no way out for Hezbollah with this one. Pieces of the Iranian truck-fired Falaq-1 rocket were scattered all around the site of the massacre.
While I would still not rule out a major attack in the north, it appears that Netanyahu and his war cabinet have held back on quantity in favor of quality. On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets raced towards Beirut, where they fired missiles that killed Fuad Shukr, the most senior military commander of Hezbollah. Also known as Sayyid Mohsen, he was considered the Qassem Soleimani of the Hezbollah terrorist group.
Not only was he responsible for the rocket that killed the 12 children in Majdal Shams, but he also directed Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel post-October 7. Shukr was an arms agent, responsible for bringing in the terrorist groups most advanced weapons.
The U.S. State Department also took close notice, because four decades ago Shukr was a key operative in the planning and launching of the 1983 attack that killed 241 marines at their barracks in Beirut.
The Killing of Ismail Haniyeh
For many, that may have been enough. But these were 12 innocent children cut down while playing. Only six days after the Iranian outgoing minister of Intelligence said, “Dismantling the Mossad’s infiltration network in Iran is the greatest achievement during my tenure,” an Israeli-made Spike anti-tank guided missile was fired from a Tehran rooftop. On the receiving end was none other than Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau.
It seems the wealthy terrorist left his cushy hideaway in the safety of Qatar to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Big mistake! That is when the Mossad took him out – allegedly.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death. There are those times when despite the facts that it looks like Mossad and acts like Mossad and quacks like Mossad, it’s just a rogue Iranian element that hates Hamas and hates the Islamic regime. Whoever it was who pulled the trigger on that anti-tank missiled, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important was the removal of this man from the chessboard. Already there are demonstrations in the West Bank, and the threats have begun from President Erdoğan in Turkey and Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran, a country that now has egg on its face due to the incident. It will be interesting to see if anyone makes good their threat.
In a speech from the IDF Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv last night, PM Netanyahu reminded the nation of the importance of the battle we are in. It is a fight for our very existence against Iran’s axis of evil: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. He recalled the targeted killing three weeks ago of Hamas chief of staff, Muhammad Daf. He brought up the massive bombing of the Houthis two weeks ago following their drone attack on Tel Aviv. Then, after the despicable murders of our children in Majdal Shams, he told how we took revenge on Fuad Shukr, a notorious terrorist wanted for crimes committed against Israel and the United States.
Yes, it is taking time, he said, but that is something about which he warned from the beginning. But if this fight for peace in our land is to be done right and done permanently, we must be patient and tenacious. He also warned anyone with thoughts of taking revenge, saying, “We will settle our score with anyone who harms us. Everyone who takes aim at our children, everyone who murders our citizens, everyone who harms our country – their blood is on their own head.”
President Erdoğan’s Threats
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would do well to heed Netanyahu’s warning. His threat against Israel following Haniyeh’s elimination was his second of the week. The first was spewed Sunday, when he said, “We must be strong so Israel won’t be able to do these things to the Palestinians. Just as we invaded Karabakh and Libya, we will do the same to Israel.”
These bombastic words don’t surprise me at all. With what I know about the Ezekiel 38 war, they are expected. In fact, along with the gruesome attacks and deeply lingering aftermath of the October 7 massacre, Erdoğan’s unhinged hatred of Israel makes up the plot of Steve Yohn’s and my next Nir Tavor novel, The Sick Man’s Rage. You can preorder it now before its December 3 release.
No comments:
Post a Comment