Global SITREP D10-18: Would an IDF Reconquest of Gaza Occur in a Vacuum?

Gettin' ready...

UPDATE 25 November 2018: Regarding the transfer of Russian-made 9M133 Kornet anti-tank missiles from Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah to HAMAS and the other terrorists in Gaza, The Times of Israel is the source for this update. It seems that the Islamic State in Sinai (IS Wilayat Sinai) recently intercepted and confiscated a shipment of these and other high-tech, GPS-guided weapons as they were crossing the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) enroute to HAMAS in Gaza. It is most telling that despite the blockade imposed upon Gaza, shipments such as this very large one (the largest to date seized by IS Wilayat Sinai) still continue unabated. 

Analysis: In addition to Gaza, the Sinai will also be a front in the coming fighting. HAMAS is therefore liable to permit IS Wilayat Sinai keep the seized weaponry in the realization that a secondary front to pull additonal IDF assets away from the coming Gaza operation would be beneficial to HAMAS and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

There is also a report found on the INN website which made global news this past week. With the U.S. clamping down on economic sanctions against Iran, it was revealed this past Tuesday that a clandestine money pipeleine run by the Russian Federation and Islamic Republic of Iran governments was discovered by the U.S. Treasury invesigators. This complex scheme was one in which crude oil transfers along with hundreds of millions of dollars were run through Syria for funding the Syrian government in addition to the terrorist operations of Hezbollah in Lebanon and HAMAS in Gaza. Details are in the linked report, yet an easy assessment to make here would be that the cuting off of this level of funding for Syria, Hezbollah and HAMAS, all terrorist proxies of Iran and the Russian Federation, is bound to hurt. Financial strangulation is as much a tool of war and bombs and bullets.

22 November 2018: One would have significantly impaired hearing, both literally and spiritually, to not hear the increasing beat of war drums across the Middle East for most of this past year. Limited military engagements are one thing, and these have markedly increased from the spring to this fall, but in the past day, and as noted in the previous SITREP, the military situation across the Middle East has changed significantly.

How significantly? When was the last time a senior Israeli security council official was heard to say publicly that Israel was "being forced to recapture parts or all of the Gaza Strip." Gilad Erdan said it yesterday. Fellow security council member Israel Katz was quick to back his colleague up, saying Israel faced "a no-choice war against HAMAS in Gaza." When was the last time a former senior Israeli official of the stature of Gideon Sa'ar called for a precision preemptive strike on Iranian missile factories run by Hezbollah in Lebanon before the "window of opportunity closes?" 

And then we have Nickolay Mladendov, the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, opine what most intellectually honest observers have known for quite some time now: the Islamic Republic of Iran wants a full-scale war to erupt between Israel and HAMAS in the Gaza Strip and across much of southern Israel. All of these statements occurred on the same day at the same Jerusalem Post event. None of them were mere rhetoric.

To top this off, and concurrent with the above statements, the Iranian commander of IRGC forces, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, threatened all American ground and air forces across the CENTCOM AOR, and all vessels of the U.S. 5th Fleet with strikes by Iranian missile forces. (The Brigadier General's typical Persian braggadocio notwithstanding, that kind of a strike on U.S. forces in the Middle East would almost certainly amount to the last thing he would do with his forces.

Any ardent student of Bible prophecy should be able to rattle off all of the prophetic verses which correspond directly with the above statements. And all of them are inter-related in one manner or another. For example, Isaiah 11:14 has a direct correlation to an Israeli reconquest of the Gaza strip. But if one reads the entire verse it directly links an IDF assault upon Gaza with a military conquest of those areas of modern Jordan (i.e. the Aqaba, Talifah, Karak, Madaba and Amman Governorates) known in ancient times as Edom, Moab and Ammon. This speaks to a much wider war and is just one aspect of what we know as the prophetic Psalm 83 war.

There is also the longstanding real-world link between the terrorist forces in Gaza and Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. Again, this link is a specific point from Asaph's Psalm 83 prophecy. The Iranians and Hezbollah have been clandestinely supplying Israel's enemies in Gaza with high-tech warfighting materiel for at least the past seven years. The reference here is to war materiel such as the Russian-made, laser-guided 9M133 Kornet anti-tank missiles. 

These anti-tank missiles were transferred from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon prior to the 2006 war, and subsequently Hezbollah supplied them to HAMAS and Islamic Jihad. The Kornets, with a maximum range of over 3 miles, have since been fired at and have destroyed a number Israeli civilian buses, including school buses traveling within line-of-sight of the Gaza Strip, since April 7, 2011. We read about these attrocites every now and then in Israeli news reports, but the events are soon forgotten as time passes. With absolute certainty, they are not forgotten in Israel. In addition to Psalm 83 there is the widely unheralded (except here on Eschatology Today!) prophecy found in Joshua 13 which deals specifically with Lebanon, and therefore is linked also to the overall Psalm 83 prophetic scenario.

Does anyone seriously think that Israel would engage in warfighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon without also directly confronting Iran and its military proxy forces in Syria? It's a no-brainer, of course they will, and there we have a direct link to the Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27 prophecies that have been a focus on Eschatology Today pretty much for the entire year as well, and since everyone is familiar with them by now those prophecies won't be belabored further in this SITREP.

The point of this is that a full-scale military operation undertaken by the IDF to retake Gaza is a virtual gateway to a much larger conflict; there is no way  such a reconquest would occur in a geopolitical or military vacuum. An IDF operation for the reconquest of Gaza would directly involve, and/or lead to the fulfillment of a half-dozen or more 'last days' prophecies. The flood of falling prophetic dominoes, remember? So, does Eschatology Today assess that a literal fulfillment of Isaiah 11:14 could lead to the final act of the Psalm 83 war? Yes, of course; it's been a consistent theme here for several years. And to borrow Minister Gilad Erdan's phraseology... we're now closer to a literally fulfilled mass of prophetic Scripture than we have ever been before. And it's not if, but when. Eschatology Today assesses the 'when' is soon - very, very soon.