Good evening all.

It has been a difficult day, long and stressful. Rocket barrages continued throughout the day in the south, including to the coastal cities of Askelon and Ashdod. In addition, there was an anti-tank missile fired into northern Israel from Lebanon and the IDF retaliated appropriately. This evening, sirens blasted throughout communities in the north, including Haifa, with a warning of some 30 drones that entered Israeli air space, sending people to secured rooms in their homes or buildings. The IDF just reported that the warning was “a mistake” and that there is no present threat in the north.

After five days of war, an emergency unity government was established today to deal with the situation. The “war cabinet” is made up of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and a former IDF Chief of Staff. Other Members of Knesset are part of this unity government. Hopefully, they will have the courage to make the decisions necessary under the present circumstances. 

The IDF has already indicated that notwithstanding the number of hostages being held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and despite the emotional enormity of the suffering of the relatives of those missing, these will not be considerations for the action that will be taken against the terrorists. Yoav Galant, the Minister of Defense, spoke to the troops in the field yesterday and stated: “Hamas wanted a change in Gaza, it will change 180 degrees from what they thought. They will regret this moment – Gaza will not return to what it was…There will be no situation where Israeli children are murdered in the fields, and Hamas continues to exist. I have lifted all restrictions – we will kill everyone who fights us, using all means. Whoever comes to behead, to murder women, Holocaust survivors – we will annihilate them.” These are tough words and reveal a resolve to finally fight our enemy with the intention to win.

Israel continues to pound areas in the Gaza Strip and destroy buildings and military targets, with some success in eliminating high-ranking members of the Hamas terrorist organization. Two days ago, part of what I wrote was: Striking Hamas targets may have some impact, but what needs to be done is to strike Hamas itself and its leadership. We need to cut off the head of the snake and bury it deep.Striking Hamas targets may have some impact, but what needs to be done is to strike Hamas itself and its leadership. We need to cut off the head of the snake and bury it deep.This attitude is finding more and more support within the ranks of our government. May it be that they finally realize that Hamas cannot be the only one fighting a war, with Israel responding, even severely, but without the goal of winning the war. That is a recipe for defeat. If we are in a war, we need to fight to win, not to wait for a political solution and/or the intervention of foreign governments that will try to bring about yet another meaningless cease-fire when we achieve the upper hand. I encourage you to read the article published today by the Gatestone Institute, that argues clearly and strongly: “To win a war, you have to fight one.” <https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20038/win-a-war>

If all of our attention is focused on immediate events, attacks from Gaza and potential attacks from Lebanon and Syria, then we miss the story behind the story, namely that Iran is behind the terrorist attack that began on Saturday, 7th October. According to an article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal on 8th October: “Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War” <https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-israel-hamas-strike-planning-bbe07b25>. According to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, both Iranian puppets, Iranian officials gave the “green light” for the assault a week ago Monday. The U.S. officials deny having any information to verify that Iran “directed or was behind this particular attack”, but the same account was given by a European official and adviser to the Syrian government. Despite the willingness of the U.S. to stand with Israel at this time, it will have a heavy price to pay for its political and financial agreements with Iran that made this attack, and others, possible.

The “big folks” make wars possible. But, what about the “little folks”? Parents often try to comfort their children during times of difficulty and children respond with childish statements. Sometimes, when the situation becomes critical, children respond with greater understanding. When Kibbutz Beeri, which was overrun by the terrorists, one family sat is absolute silence while the shooting took place outside their home. Their daughter, age 7, whispered: “Mommy, I don’t want to die. I am only 7 years old. I am too little to die.” A 5-year-old boy turned to his mother and asked: “Mom, are all countries under fire now?” A 9-year-old in a besieged house in Kibbutz Beeri was interviewed and said: “I’m fine. I’m a little stressed a lot, but we’ll get through it. I heard shots and that they hit our window outside of our shelter. We also heard a lot of alarms sirens and explosions and now there are shots here again. All the time I gave mom hugs and also gave her my hand. I feel better now, because the army said they will come with the car and take us to where all the other people are. It’s not easy to go through that when you’re 9 years old.” There are many such statements that appear on an Instagram page called “Kids are the best screen writers.” They give us a simple, but direct, perspective that many adults cannot relate to.

A closing note: The numbers of killed and fallen and wounded are far from final. As more and more bodies are being found, one organization, that literally picks up the pieces of dead bodies, reported that none of its people have ever experienced the type of slaughter that they saw and had to deal with in some of the communities that were attacked. They said that the terrorists indiscriminately  killed and mutiliated everyone they came across, male and female, adults and minors, even babies in their cribs. They described the scene as nothing less than a holocaust. 

Please pray for:

The new government; the IDF and that a second front will not be opened; the wounded; the captives; the families of the captives; the general public in Israel and (fill in what you are led to pray for). May God keep us under the shadow of His wings.

Bless, be blessed and be a blessing.

Marvin

p.s.: Our organization, A Future and A Hope, continues to provide humanitarian assistance to women dealing with a crisis pregnancy and to single moms, who need various types of help and supplies during the war. Please keep them in your prayers, as well.