The following report is from SOFREP:
sraeli ground forces have now begun to attack Hamas in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel Air Force (IAF) continues to carry out devastating air strikes early on Friday morning.
Hamas has launched over 1,800 rockets towards Israel since Monday. Some of the rockets showcase a much longer range than many Israeli intelligence agencies believed possible. Yet, this is only a fraction of the 30,000 rockets and mortar projectiles Israeli intelligence estimates that Hamas has.
Many of Hamas’s rockets fell short of their destined targets and landed on their own people.
Israeli “Iron Dome” air defense missile systems have been very effective, shooting down about 90 percent of the targeted rockets. Israel claims that Hamas’s longer-range rockets are being built domestically with technical assistance from Iran.
Lynchings And Mob Violence In Israeli Mixed Cities
The violence has taken an even uglier turn in mixed Arab-Israeli cities where mobs of Arabs and Jews have set about attacking people in lynching attacks. There is also widespread looting and arson. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the situation as “anarchy.” He appealed to both sides for an end to the “lynchings.”
Nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs, and nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews.
There is no greater threat now than these riots, and it is essential to bring back law and order with these means.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Hamas Will Take Years To Recover From The Airstrikes
The Israeli Air Force seems intent on eliminating senior Hamas leadership with drone and airstrikes. It has hit over 750 targets, eliminating at least 60 Hamas fighters including a reported 10 senior commanders.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza is rising alarmingly. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 103 Gazans were killed on Thursday, and 580 were injured.
The Jerusalem Post reported that it will take years for Hamas to recover from the airstrikes IAF conducted on its infrastructure on Thursday. Airstrikes hit government targets, Hamas’s central bank, a Hamas navy unit, as well the home of Iyad Tayeb, a top Hamas commander. The IDF said that Tayeb’s home was being used for terrorist purposes. IDF also conducted an airstrike on a Hamas defensive tunnel that was under a school.
Additionally, the IAF hit Hamas’s cyber unit, four high-rise buildings that were used for military purposes, and the “operational apartment” of the head of Hamas’s drone unit Samer Abu Daka.
Airstrikes also leveled “operational apartments” used to direct recent rocket attacks towards Israeli cities. The apartments belonged to the deputy commander of Hamas’s Jabalya regiment in the northern Strip, as well as three company commanders in northern and central Gaza.
The organization is losing everything.
Tonight we started destroying government targets in the Gaza Strip, such as central banks and internal security buildings. Hamas is beginning to discover cracks and there is pressure in the organization, even among the Gaza public who is losing its patience and sees these ruins on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
IDF Spokesperson Brigadier General Hidai Zilberman
Have Israeli Ground Forces Entered Gaza?
The use of Israeli ground forces in the attacks on Gaza is certainly an escalation. Nevertheless, the extent of their use hasn’t been determined. Specifically, it isn’t known if IDF ground forces have entered Gaza or if they are just firing their weapons from Israeli territory into Gaza. The IDF released just a cryptic one-sentence message on social media just after midnight, “IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli military spokesman, LTC Jonathan Conricus, released a statement that didn’t add any further information.
There are ground troops attacking in Gaza, together with air forces as well.
President Joe Biden weighed in with a carefully crafted statement. The U.S. president said that he had not seen a “significant overreaction” from the Israeli government in response to Hamas’s rocket attacks. He added that Hamas had been “indiscriminately [firing] into population centers.”
President Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu at length on Thursday. In that call, Biden reportedly said Israel had “the right to defend itself.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[6] Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. [7] Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. [8] For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. [9] Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good.Psalms 122:6-9
[17] Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. [18] There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up. [19] These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee? [20] Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God. [21] Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: [22] Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: [23] But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.Isaiah 51:17-23
The tensions are seriously heating up in Israel, needless to say, and I believe it will only further escalate. We shall see what transpires in the days, weeks, and months ahead, but make no mistake: the fighting will get much much worse.
For an economic tie-in, crude oil has been ascending higher and higher because of this conflict (1 Timothy 6:10).
When The WinePress says that we support and defend the nation of Israel, this does not mean we defend their abominations, blasphemies against Jesus Christ, and their governmental and financial corruption; but it means we understand and recognize that God promised that he would bring the Jews, his chosen people, back into their land in unbelief, and will save them in the latter days (Romans 11; Hosea 3; Ezekiel 36).
Israel Has Become The Modern Nazi Germany
Additionally, the reason The WinePress has not been reporting too much on all the constant conflicts is because this is the stuff that happens each and every year, and, while it is important, it is my opinion that a lot (but not all) of end times and prophecy ministries and outlets use the constant chaos in Israel as a crutch to create an endless cycle of “hope” that the Lord will catch up his church at any waking moment because someone fired a rocket at each other in the Middle East. I am not saying we shouldn’t discuss these things, but I perceive that there are a lot of pastors and preachers that use this constant Israeli tension as a “rapture bailout” of sorts, when, in reality, we may still have more time left for the church to be here on this earth. But do not use that as excuse to stop looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13; Philippians 3:20-21).
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