Sunday, August 3, 2014

Global SITREP C29-14: Operation Protective Edge Morphs Into War of Attrition

IDF Merkava Mk4 MBTs form up in ranks to return to Israel from Gaza

3 August 2014 - Operation Protective Edge Day27: After 27 days of combat in Gaza, Israel's political leadership has decided that Operation Protective Edge will have achieved its mission objective of destroying all terrorist tunnels. Along with this determination the IDF also declared 2LT Hadar Goldin KIA and therefore not a prisoner of the enemy in Gaza. Israel can now go home, it's mission in Gaza is complete and there are no MIA soldiers to search for in Gaza. Yes, it appears as if 2LT Goldin's corpse, as well as that of SGT. Oron Shaul, will be left in the hands of the terrorists of Gaza; Israel abandons its soldiers on the field of battle for the purpose of political expediency; not everyone gets to come home.

With HAMAS, the PIJ, Islamic State and all other jihadi factions still extant on or under Gaza's soil this war will now morph into a war of cross-border attrition with rocket, missile, mortar and sniper fire coming out of Gaza being responded to by Israeli airstrikes, artillery and tank fire coming into Gaza. There will be no demilitarization of Gaza by the IDF, not this time anyway. And Israel's population will have to live with the sound of Code Red sirens 24/7 indefinitely. No army pulls itself out of a war zone, (i.e. relinquishes conquered territory) just to re-group, spin around and then go back in a day or a week later. The destruction of the terrorists of Gaza will have to wait for another day, another war.

In this type of unilateral disengagement the government of Israel can make all the claims that suit its political purposes and whims, but it has not achieved anything close to a comprehensive military victory. Israel has not won this war; it has postponed it to another day in the future. The Islamic Republic of Iran, though its proxies, has achieved a state of perpetual war on Israel's southern border with Gaza, a war of attrition which is guaranteed to continue to consume Israel's resources of every type imaginable for the foreseeable future. It also remains to be seen how the Israeli public will react to the current situation; how Likud manages to spin this fiasco and remain in power after the next election. Israel's generals did not get to fight this war with respect to any established doctrine; the politicians in Jerusalem made certain of that.

4 August 2014: OPE Day 28 was pretty much the same as what occurred on OPE Day 27. The terrorists launched another 100 rockets at Israel. The difference, if one can it that, is that yet another in an endless stream of worthless 72-hour cease fires has been scheduled to erupt in about four and one-half hours from now (0800 Israel time) during what we might ostensibly refer to as OPE Day 29. Same old, same old, including the quasi-intifada going on in Jerusalem's environs. By the way, as of sunset this evening Tisha B'Av officially commenced in Israel.

HaKirya, Israel government center and IDF HQ in Tel Aviv defended by the Lord's Qadiym

Final Update 4 August 2014 - OPE Day 28: On Sunday, 3 August, there was a report in Israel Today in which an Iron Dome anti-missile system operator admitted that there was a very rare instance recently where a HAMAS long range rocket (an M-75 of R-160 no doubt) that was inbound for the high-value the HaKirya (Campus) of central Tel Aviv. The inbound rocket was targeted, fired at and missed three times by its Arrow interceptors. This kind of failure of Iron Dome is virtually unheard of.

What happened within the next few and precious seconds is straight out of Genesis 41, Exodus 10/14 and especially Job 27:21, which says: "The east wind (qadiym) carries him away, and he is gone; It sweeps him out of his place." This is precisely what the Hand of God did to save hundreds of lives in the the HaKirya. As translated into English from the Hebrew kooker website, here is the Iron Dome operators narrative:

"A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.
"We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.
"Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a God!’
“I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of God send that missile into the sea.”
Despite all that is now occurring, or not occurring, as we may perceive these events in the Israel-HAMAS War this summer, one thing remains true above all else - the God of Israel is in total control; His will is being done for His purposes. Nothing is finished until He says "It is finished!"

Thank you Abba, in Jesus Name!

14 comments:

  1. Sean,

    I am just baffled by the Israeli retreat under continuous rocket fire.

    How much longer must Israelis tolerate living in bomb shelters?

    And how much longer does Israel think they have before Iran's nuclear program will cross the point of no return?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark,

    As can be discerned from the text of this SITREP, only Israel's security cabinet can possibly answer your questions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm afraid Israel will have to suffer some great catastrophe (i.e. chemical/nuclear strike on the more populated areas) to rise above the political class, national and global, and destroy all of the jihadist.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OK, I hinted at this before but I'll come out and say it. After the next Israeli elections, I doubt Netanyahu will be prime minister. I don't know if I should feel bad for him, I know he is under tremendous pressure.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Roz,

    I agree with you. Something like that will likely be what has to occur.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Zephaniah 2:4-5 Ashkelon will be destroyed and Gaza will be no more. The destruction of Ashkelon will be the factor in Israel go after all the Jihadist forces.

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  7. Yes, Zephaniah 2:4-5 are the specific verses, but the context of Zephaniah 1 (70th Week judgments) must be combined with Zephaniah 2 for the accurate placement in the pre-70th Week scenario of prophetic events.

    And it won't just be the jihadists, it will be all enemies from Lebanon all the way around Jordan to the Sinai and Gaza.

    We were briefly discussing this prophetic verse back on July 13. It is rarely brought up in the context of the Psalm 83 scenario, but as I will always point out, anything to do with "inner ring" is directly related to the Psalm 83 scenario that will play out before us.

    Zephaniah 2:2 provide us with the pre-70th Week time factor. What follows this verse in the prophecy occurs prior to the wrath of the 70th Week.

    Zephaniah 2:3 speaks directly to the Harpazo prior to the 70th Week.

    And then Zephaniah 2:4 tells us that Gaza shall be (Heb: 'azab) meaning abandoned, forsaken, departed from, left behind, and Ashkelon shall be (Heb: shĕmamah meaning a devastation, a waste, a desolation.

    Zephaniah 2:5-7 complete the prophecy for this coastal area. The verse which follow show the full expanse of the war... all the war into what is now the heartland of the Islamic State in northern Iraq (Assur in Psalm 83:8).

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  8. This retreat, will be akin to chumming the water with blood, and the Muslim sharks circling Yisra'el are sure to see this as a weakness, and this could very easily increase the likelihood for an all out assault by all of Yisra'el's enemies! By not finishing off HAMAS, Egypt may see this weakness and break and refuse to help Yisra'el in the future. It was an incredibly stupid move on Yisra'el's security counsel to order the withdrawal before breaking the back of HAMAS! A decision they will rue in the very near future!

    Maranatha! Mark

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sean,

    In response to "Anonymous" at 9:28 pm, I have been thinking and wondering about this very setup. I see this am that the "ceasefire" led to 31 rockets fired at Israel…no surprise there. However, the sudden, abrupt and totally illogical decision to withdraw, knowing full well that the muslims will sense weakness, and be empowered that they fought off the mighty Zionists, leads me to wonder (pure speculation here to be sure) that Bibi is waiting for this subhumans to do something really atrocious and then he will have shut up most of the world opposition (including our present king). If the enemy uses say bio/chem weapons, I can clearly see that the decision to lay waste would be rather easy. The abruptness of the withdrawal is puzzling…and I think some deeper things are in play here.

    Thoughts ??

    ReplyDelete
  10. I cannot look any further or speculate any more than what has already been posted to this blog or in the comments section.

    Bible prophecy is quite clear about this end time scenario we are witnessing and any further speculation is futile and well beyond the bane of the eschatological community, popularly known as "newspaper exegesis." I will not participate in or allow "newspaper exegesis" to occur here.

    With respect to Egypt, there really is nothing more to say than the exegesis that has been posted to this blog regarding Isaiah 19 and Ezekiel 29.

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  11. I wonder if the Israelis are using a tactic of Sun-Tsu: “Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

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  12. There is no way that IDF war planners never even considered to include Sun Tzu's tactics in OPE as a counter strategy to present day Islamic jihad.

    The reason being is that Sun Tzu never faced an enemy that used a suicidal leading element on the battlefield and the Qur'anic concept of war could never have possibly occurred to Sun Tzu as he pre-existed the Qur'anic concept of war by more than 1,000 years.

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  13. The last update was awe inspiring!!

    I hope as God shows His hand to the Israelis, they will turn from depending on the world for protection and put their hope and strategy in God.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Roz,

    I believe they will.

    I have often wondered why there is no mention of the IDF in Ezekiel 38/39...

    And so soon after the Psalm 83 scenario comes to fulfillment.

    ReplyDelete

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