Global SITREP E2-18: IDF Operation Northern Shield

FINAL UPDATE 16 December 2018:  Comments that were made yesterday and early this morning are going to constitute the final update for this SITREP.

The shoot down of the Russian IL-22M (NATO Name: Coot-A) ELINT aircraft (See: Global SITREP D1-18: The End-Game in Syria?) in mid-September did indeed launch the "end-game" in Syria. In fact, that critical event has become the direct impetus for the literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 38:7 NKJV, which reads:

"Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them."

Here are the details of which Eschatology Today is now fully aware. One week ago a senior IDF military delegation, led by IDF Operations commander Major General Aharon Haliva, and his staff traveled to Moscow to meet with his direct Russian Federation military counterpart.  

Now understand this, most published media accounts, including and especially Israeli media, about this allegedly high-level face-to-face meeting are disinformative at best. These reports deliberately obscure the true net results of what took place. There is one exception that Eschatology Today located yesterday, and that report was published by YNet News yesterday morning.

The senior Russian officer did not meet with MG Haliva. In fact MG Haliva and his staff were snubbed completely by the Russians. The Russian officer who did meet with MG Haliva was his subordinate stand-in, Major General Vasily Trushin. This thing here is that MG Trushin, who is about to retire, has no direct connection to the Russian military operations in Syria. According to an un-named IDF official, MG Trushin is the only Russian military officer to have any regular contact whatsoever with Israel since the Coot-A shoot down by Syrian forces. As reported by Ynet News, 

"Furthermore, the Russians set the date for the meeting knowing full well that their chief of military operations, chief of staff, defense minister, and a large part of the Russian military brass would not even be in the country during Haliva’s visit."

 These details are critically instructive about what the IDF delegation actually returned from Russia with. And that is nothing more than a continuation of discussions on "security coordination" in Syria through which zero of substance is accomplished. Israel, as represented by the IDF, was snubbed in the most overt, in-your-face manner possible by Russia. Israel's best efforts at diffusing tensions with Russia, which are not Israel's fault but Syria's, have been repeatedly rejected. Moreover, the Russians have given the Iranian military forces in Syria, including Hezbollah, the freedom to disguise themselves by flying the Russian flag wherever they may be operating. 

This is essentially Russia fulfilling in real-time the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:7 in guarding them from Israeli military attacks and allowing Iranian and Syrian forces to soon fire upon Israel from their positions flying the Russian flag. What takes place next, preemptive or not, is eminently predictable as we know from several of the ancient Hebrew prophets God-breathed texts.

14 December 2018: The case for direct linkage of several major prophecies (i.e. prophetic dominoes) is becoming easier with each passing day. Take Isaiah 17 for example. There's some intel circulating in the past few days, especially since the alleged IAF strikes on Kisweh and Harfa of a week ago (AFP image above), that the IRGC-QF has deployed Hezbollah units in a continuous line along the Syria-Lebanon border, and then in a semi-circular ring around southern Damascus. 

In addition to these deployments IRGC-QF has deployed its Shi'a militias in front of the Hezbollah positions facing the Golan and Israel. The thinking that goes with this intel is that Iran is preparing to open a broad front against Israel from both Lebanon and Syria, with the initial intent of slicing off the Galilee region, or a good chunk of it, from Israel. Simultaneously the terror in Judea and Samaria and from Gaza is intended to encircle Israel with conflict on all sides. 

The current Eschatology Today assessment holds that Israel will continue to act preemptively as discussed in this SITREP, probably with its regional allies and without so much as a peep of warning, to continue thwarting the Iranian war plans. Think: modern maneuver warfare on steroids, in-depth and well behind enemy lines. It's just a matter of time; yet sooner rather than later.

12 December 2018: There are a handful of updates gleaned from OSINT in the past few days to keep us all ahead of the curve. The events may seen to some to be a world away and no great concern to us. However, as you will soon see, that is not the case.

1. Most of the civilized world is aware, ad nauseum, thanks to media hyping, of the brutal Saudi killing of journalist Adnan Khashoggi. Yet most are completely in the dark about two Iranian murder plots to be executed on foreign soil. One, thwarted in the nick of time last month by Danish intelligence, involved an Norwegian-Iranian who planned to murder an Iranian dissident in Denmark. The other was exposed last July after Austrian intelligence arrested an Iranian diplomat who was leading a plot to bomb an annual meeting of Iranian dissidents in Paris. President Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani attended that meeting. So, behind the scenes, those in power in the West are well aware of the malignant nature of the Iranian Shi'a Twelver regime in Tehran.

2.) Iran has within the past day officially acknowledged the test launch of their Khorramshahr MIRV ICBM. This test has set the EU, specifically the UK, Germany and France, firmly against the Islamic Republic, because they now realize Iran could today hit the heart of the EU with MIRVed warheads, possibly nuke warheads unless Iran's clandestine nuclear program is halted. This reality scares the EU's governing body, and not due to any regard for the prophetic text of Jeremiah 49:34-39. Their anxiety is instead due to Iran's flagrant violation of what they do hold as sacred - UNSCR 2231, a/k/a Annex B of the 2015 JCPoA. These two items have had a cumulative effect upon Western leaders lead us directly to the third and most important part of this update. 

3. There is a growing realization among the Western intelligence community, especially in Israel, that the largely down-played Iranian Shi'a Twelver apocalyptic worldview did not suddenly cease to exist with the fall from power of Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Rather it is very much alive and well within the Ayatollah, his clerics and the current Iranian president Rouhani. Western intelligence now believe in the reality that Iran is planning a "massive regional war" in furtherance of the Twelver objective of hastening the arrival their al-Mahdi figure. Put another way, our guys now believe their guys are serious of creating an apocalypse in the Middle East. The intel folks assess the sum total of all Iranian actions, covert and overt, from the Hezbollah tunnels to Gaza, to Lebanon, to the Gulf and even to Central and South America, all have the common objective of being preparations for war.

One last note, and this one really brings it home. It's been revealed that the "Hezbollah tunnel operative" seen recently on an Israel robot video camera has been identified an an Iranian known by the pseudonym "Azaladin." This Iranian is known to have trained with Mexican drug cartels on the U.S. southern border. Kinda puts a new light on what President Trump said on live TV yesterday with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer regarding who we've captured, who we've seen, and who's still there, as well as the urgent requirements of our own border security. We need to forcefully tell the politicians to stop playing politics with our national  well being - or else.

Israeli soldiers work on their tanks at a staging area near Israel's border. Israel launched a large operation Monday to destroy Hezbollah terror tunnels. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

8 December 2018: As ONS continues apace, the anticipated forward deployment of the IDF into Lebanon proper to complete destruction of discovered tunnels may be a step or two away rom becoming reality. Hezbollah appears to want this to occur. So, within this light the statement today by Minister Yoav Glanat on Israel Channel 10 News is worth noting. This is not a new statement as it has been stated previously when the threat of war with Hezbollah reared its head a couple of time in the past decade or so. 

 "We must trust the IDF and its strength, we know what to do. It does not mean that we want a war, but if we have one, we will return Lebanon to the Stone Age." - Housing Minister Yoav Galant on 8 December 2018. 

Note: Yoav Galant is a retired IDF Major General. A former commander of the Southern Command, MG Galant led the IDF against HAMAS during Operation Cast Lead of 2008-09. 

4 December 2018: Overnight the IDF launched a large-scale operation, code named Operation Northern Shield (ONS for short on this blog), to destroy invasion tunnels built by Iran's Lebanese military proxy force Hezbollah. No doubt these intended invasion tunnels were constructed with funds provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israel has issued warnings to both Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army about the deadly danger they would find themselves in should their forces approach the border.

A quick review is in order to place a series of major recent events in the proper perspective, as they are all part of the larger ongoing war between Iran and Israel.

1. Just over three weeks ago, as ordered by Iran, HAMAS and the PIJ in Gaza launched a massive barrage of nearly 500 rockets into southern Israel. Israel countered this attack with an even more massive set of counter-strikes into Gaza. HAMAS plea for a ceasefire were accepted by Israel, which created a serious problem for Netanyahu's coalition govenment. Assurances were made that the ceasefire was necessary in that a larger issue was at-hand.

2. One week later Israel launched massive punitive attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah positions, command posts and military warehouses across the breadth of southern Syria, right up to the Golan area of Quneitra. Syria, Iran and Hezbollah go silent and lick their serious wounds. Israel watches and waits for retaliation which does not materialize.

3. Operation Northern Shield is launched launched one week later, and as of last evening Israel time the operation was well under way to locate and destroy the tunnels that Iran had planned for Hezbollah and its other proxies forces to invade and seize Israel's Galilee region. These tunnels are a casus belli for Israel to re-engage Hezbollah in combat as they are an obvious and blatant violation of the ceasefire that ended the 2006 war under a U.N. resolution.

Related: IRGC Test Launch of Khorramshahr MIRV MRBM

It should go without saying, but only destroying one-half, the half that are inside the Israeli border, of each of the several Hezbollah invasion tunnels will never result in a "mission complete" status for Operation Northern Shield. The IDF will of necessity have to also destroy the half of the tunnels inside Lebanon. That will bring war against both Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). And that war will require Israel to subdue ALL of Lebanon, and in that we should find the fulfillment of the ancient Joshua 13 directive prophecy found in verses 1 through 7. Verses 8 through 33 deal with the inheritance of the lands in present-day Jordan east of the Jordan River. Israel's possession of these lands in also in accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah 11:14 as well as Ezekiel 39:11-16. 

Eschatology Today cares not what any man or group of men have to say, only what the prophetic Word of God has long ago said about these matters before us today. Marana'tha!