Iran threatened Israel on Monday after an Israeli unit killed six Iranian agents during a raid on a Hezbollah terrorist cell.
Iran promised a “crushing response” against the Jewish nation.
“The experience of the past shows that the resistance current will give a crushing response to the Zionist regime’s terrorist moves with revolutionary determination and in due time and place,” Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), told reporters.
The incident comes a week after Iranian officials said they were operating missile sites in Syria and possibly control a nuclear facility.
“If the highest level of Hezbollah commanders were in the Golan Heights and the high level of Iranians, it means that their idea, [what] they’re planning could be a kind of operation, an act against Israel on a high level,” Major General Eyal Ben Reuven of the IDF said during a conference call Monday organized by the Israel Project (TIP). “It’s significant, the high level of this meeting, of this reconnaissance of the Iranians and Hezbollah.”
“It says something about what they plan, what kind of operation they planned,” he added. “If Israel has intelligence that says there is a kind of operation on the way to act against Israel, I think Israel would have a legitimate [reason] to do all we can to prevent it.”
Hezbollah has said they are preparing for war in northern Israel.
Seeking the Lord for a word for the new year is always a very serious pursuit and this year is even more crucial as we see the “red lights of prophecy” flashing all around us and God’s plan unfolding at breakneck speed. The Lord began to speak to me while we were in Israel, and the word that I give to you I sincerely pray will resonate with your spirit and cause you to be more prepared for these times we see looming on the horizon. Remember that in the midst of all the turmoil there is a promise of His Return and that is cause for great rejoicing! Continue reading →
The murder of 17 in Paris by Islamic terrorists? It’s Israel’s fault.
That’s the view of former President Jimmy Carter.
Carter appeared on the left-wing comedy show “The Daily Show” and told host Jon Stewart that you had to place the blame for the origin of the terror attack on Israel.
“Well, one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem,” Carter said. “And this aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people who live in the West Bank and Gaza, what they are doing now — what’s being done to them. So I think that’s part of it.”
Carter didn’t elaborate how the end of Israeli-Palestinian conflict would somehow stop the anti-Semitism by Muslims throughout the world. He did go on to say that the attack was a “new development” in Islamic terrorism.
“But I think this is a new evolutionary development in terrorism, where people go into Syria, they get trained there, they have a passport from France, from Great Britain or from the United States,” he added. “They stay there for a few months and learn how to be a terrorist and then they come back through Turkey and you know they have been there and you know who they are. And I think this event in Paris is going to waken up the people in charge of security to watch those people more closely than they have in the past — and not single out all of the Muslims in the country.”
The head of the UN has taken an anti-Israeli action in stating that Palestine will join the International Criminal Court on April 1.
The move will allow Palestinians to harass Israel repeatedly with false accusations before the ICC.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed documents to join the ICC a day after the UN Security Council rejected their resolution for a three year deadline to establish a Palestinian state on Israeli occupied lands.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon posted on the UN’s treaty website that he was acting in the “capacity as depositary” for the ICC’s documents of ratification when allowed Palestine to enter April 1, 2015.
The move is part of an Palestinian campaign to attack Israel following the 50-day war started by Palestinians kidnapping and killing Israeli teenagers. The move has seen blow back for the Palestinians, as Israel has withheld $100 million in tax funds and the Obama administration said they are reviewing the $440 million per year they have been sending to Palestine.
An IDF officer has released a report showing the number of IED attacks by Palestinians on Israelis has jumped ten fold in 2014.
The rise of 20 IEDs during 2014 compared to 2 in 2013 is indicative of a rise of across-the-board violence in the West Bank.
“The level of sophistication is not very high,” said Maj. Irad Hershkovitz, the demolitions officer of the Shomron Regional Brigade. “It’s not Yahya Ayyash. It’s not the Second Intifada. But there has been a very significant rise.”
Maj. Hershkovitz told the Times of Israel that most of the IEDs are explosives placed inside a cheap metal casing along with a watch or cell phone timer.
However, he said a crackdown has been taking place on bomb makers in the West Bank.
“The solution is the waves of arrests that we do,” he said, noting that the army is active in Area A, which is under full Palestinian control, and within the refugee camps surrounding Nablus. “There is not a night in which a few Palestinians are not arrested,” he said. “Nothing else can be done. That is what stops the wave of terror.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if he was re-elected they would not be removing Israeli settlements from the West Bank.
“I don’t think withdrawing settlers is practical at the moment,” Netanyahu said. “I don’t think it will happen.”
Netanyahu continued his talk to say that he is still supportive of creation of a Palestinian state that he proposed in 2009 but that because of the actions of Palestinians, the plan is basically rendered meaningless.
The Prime Minister spoke about his issues with President Barack Obama but said that despite the actions of the Obama administration, there is a record amount of support for Israel among U.S. citizens.
Netanyahu said that the skyrocketing housing prices were the fault of previous Ehud Olmert. He said that during Olmert’s reign, the construction projects in Tel Aviv area came to a halt causing established property prices to jump.
A military court in Judea sentenced the mastermind of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers to three life sentences.
Hussam Kawasameh was convicted last week for the planning and financing of the terrorist action. He also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hamas for his work in gathering weapons. He was also the one who hid the bodies and destroyed the evidence.
Prosecutors for the IDF said that Kawasameh did not see the boys as human beings and killed them simply because they were Jews.
The father of one of the victims said that his son was a good student who helped his siblings. Avraham Fraenkel said that his son Naftali wasn’t just murdered…but that he was used as an unwilling tool for terror as Kawasameh hid his body for 18 days.
Schools have been shut down for at least three days across Jerusalem and many government offices are closing ahead of a massive blizzard that is expected to blanket the city in snow and ice.
The Israel Defense Forces are also moving to a heightened state of alert because of the storm, sending tanks into parts of northern Israel that could face being cut off because of high snowfall on roadways.
At least 1,000 soldiers have been deployed to northern Israel and Jerusalem to assist residents during the storm. The troops will make sure that all area hospitals will remain operational if doctors and nurses cannot make it into their offices because of the storm.
The front wave of the storm brought 45 mile per hour winds to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, downing trees across the region.
Last year a similar storm left wide areas with electricity, water or road access for days. The government will be shutting down major roadways ahead of the storm to avoid having vehicles trapped on the highway as they were in December 2013.
Residents have been spending the week stocking up on basic food supplies.
HarperCollins is on the defensive after the discovery they were selling an atlas of the Middle East that did not include Israel.
The Tablet, an international publication of the Catholic Church, discovered the atlas eliminating Israel. The atlas was sold to English speaking schools in Muslim-majority countries in the Persian Gulf.
HarperCollins recalled the atlas after the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said they were harming the peace process.
“HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas. This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologizes for this omission and for any offence caused,” HarperCollins posted on their website.
“The publication of this atlas will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists a hostility towards their country from parts of the Arab world. It will not help to build up a spirit of trust leading to peaceful co-existence,” Bishop Declan Lang told The Tablet.
“Maps can be a very powerful tool in terms of de-legitimising ‘the other’ and can lead to confusion rather than clarity. We would be keen to see relevant bodies ensure that all atlases anywhere reflect the official UN position on nations, boundaries and all political features,” added Dr. Jane Clements, director of the Council of Christians and Jews.
Just days after the United Nations shut down Palestinian attempts to force the world to recognize them as a nation, the leadership of the Palestinian Authority are now attempting to attack Israel in an international court.
The Palestinians claim that Israel committed war crimes beginning on June 13, 2014, the day after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian affiliated terrorists.
The move comes after Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas signed the ICC’s founding treaty and filed a formal request for Palestine to be considered a member state. It will take weeks for that process to be approved by the Court.
Palestine had been upgraded in a unanimous vote to “observer status” in December. The previous times Palestine has come after Israel at the ICC the cases have been dismissed because Palestine had no authority over the areas where they alleged crimes had taken place.
A PLO official told Haarets News Agency that it was important to get Palestine in the ICC because then civilian groups could file lawsuit after lawsuit against Israel.