Operation Oferet Yetzuka

The day I had to fly back to the USA, my husband said: “Israel will go into Gaza soon.” I asked him how he knew? He answered he could feel these things.

Sure enough, the war with Hamas began on Shabbat, December 27, – the sixth day of Hanukkah. The Operation was given the military name “Cast Lead” (Oferet yetzuka), referring to the leaden Dreidels played with on Hanukkah. These festive spinning tops were once made of molten lead poured into a metal mold, and a popular Hanukkah children’s song refers to a Dreidel made of “cast lead”. As G-D would have it, this war will be identified in the annals of Israeli history as the Hanukkah war.

Most Israeli wars are connected with certain Jewish holidays. On the “Ninth of Av” (Tisha b’Av) in 586 BC and 70 AD, both Jewish Temples were destroyed in Jerusalem. The “Yom Kippur War” of October 1973 began on the “Day of Atonement”. The First Gulf War ended in 1991 on the first day of “Purim”. The Second Intifada broke out on “Rosh Hashanah”, in 2000.

G-d is still speaking to Israel and the nations using His prophetic calendar and His feast days (see Leviticus 23:2, 4), including minor feasts like “Hanukkah” (see Daniel 11:29-35).

After Israel withdrew or retreated from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, that region was taken over by the Islamist group Hamas (‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’), a group linked with the Muslim Brotherhood. All these different Islamic Jihad groups are ideologically linked to Osama Bin Laden.

It is important to know that Hamas refuses to recognize the state of Israel and calls for Israel’s military destruction. Over the past three years it has fired more than 10,000 Qassam or Grad rockets and mortars against civilians only – towns, farms and cities within Israel. And during the past week it fired between 36 and 80 rockets per day into kibbutzim, small villages and large towns.

For the past three years the government of Israel tolerated a buildup of these rocket attacks. Though originally then-Prime-Minister Ariel Sharon soothingly promised Israelis that the disengagement from Gaza would bring peace, and if even “one rocket were fired” Israel would re-conquer the Gaza Strip, the 10,000 rockets fired starkly contradict the soundness and wisdom of his policies. Part of the recent tolerance is due to the fact that the Kadima party Sharon founded is still in office, and these officials owe their political positions to these failed policies. – Trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result!

Over the past few weeks Israel has repeatedly warned Hamas and surrounding countries that if the rocket attacks continue, it will decisively and powerfully respond. These Israeli warnings have gone unnoticed by the world’s media, as have the rocket attacks. No country that is worthy of the name would allow terrorists to rocket their civilian populations for so long without an overwhelming response. For both Israel and Hamas, that day of response has come.

That is why Israeli fighter jets and attack helicopters destroyed strategic Hamas sites. 95% of the hits were ‘alpha’, meaning exact strikes with no collateral damage.

Over 240 strategic sites have been hit in the past 40 hours. One site hit was the Hamas police compound, where 80 gunmen were gathered.

On Sunday Israeli jets struck and destroyed 40 underground tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle in significant amounts of weapons, explosives and anti-tank/anti-aircraft missiles in a 3 minute 20 second sortie. This area is called the Philadelphi Corridor, and was surrendered to Hamas by Israel due to significant U.S. State Department pressure in 2005. Over 700 tunnels have been dug, and most are still operative.

Up to this point Hamas rocket squads have managed to fire more than 70 rockets at Israel, and Israel’s Military Intelligence believes that Hamas has the ability and reserves to fire up to 200 rockets daily for quite some time.

On Sunday one Hamas rocket traveled 37 kilometers, hitting Gan Yavne a bedroom community east of Ashdod.

Despite the realities on the ground or how discredited the land-for-peace process has become after decades of futile efforts to push ahead with it, the so-called Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators let Israel know Tuesday that there is no going back, no way out, no turning around.

Efforts are going to be made to shoulder ahead with the process. And if it is in fact endangering the security and very existence of Israel, that’s just too bad.

A dictatorial statement released by the group said that “the bilateral negotiations process launched at Annapolis is irreversible and … these negotiations should be intensified in order to put an end to the conflict and to establish as soon as possible the state of Palestine.”

The land on which this “Palestine” is to be created has for nearly 4000 years been regarded by Jews as their national homeland, and houses the bones of Israel’s founding fathers.

US Secretary of State is Condoleezza Rice has been particularly keen to lock in the “progress” she has made at pushing, cajoling and strong-arming Israel into striking a deal with the Arabs.

With time running out for her – she has just a month left in her powerful position – a relieved Rice said the Quartet’s resolution had “put the international community on record in believing in the irreversibility of the Annapolis process.”

To placate the oil-wielding aggressive Arab states and uncompromising Muslim demands, the G-D-rejecting nations of the world remain determined to divide up the Jews’ divinely-given land.

According to the Bible – a day of reckoning is racing towards them.

Please pray for the IDF and the people of Israel:

“G-D, don’t remain silent! Don’t stay quiet, G-D or still; because here are your enemies, causing an uproar; those who hate you are raising their heads, craftily conspiring against your people, consulting against those you treasure.

They say, “Come, let’s wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” With one mind they plot their schemes; the covenant they have made is against you – the tents of Edom (Jordan) and the Yishmaelim (Arabs). Moav (Jordan) and the Hagrim ( descendants of Hagar= Arabs), Gval (Lebanon), Amon and Amalek (descendants of Esau). Pleshet (Philistines =Palestinians) with those living in Tzor (Tyre). Ashur (Syria) too is allied with them, to reinforce the descendants of Lot (nephew of Abraham)…..Fill their faces with shame, so that they will seek your name, Adonai!

Let them be ashamed and fearful forever, yes, let them perish in disgrace. Let them know that you alone, whose name is Adonai, are the Most High over all the earth!” (Psalm 83:1-8,16-18)

May the Dreidel say again: נגהפ – Nes Gadol Haya Po—”A great miracle happened here”.