Deuteronomy 20:3

He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

A Second Direct Attack From Iran

The October 1st Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel included over 200 ballistic ground-to-ground missiles targeting the entire populated areas in the land of Israel. Thankfully, most were intercepted by the IDF’s multi-layered air defense network. US forces in the region also intercepted some of the Iranian missiles.
[Picture From Facebook – the remains of a ballistic missile in the Dead Sea]

The IRGC, The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an Iranian military arm, excuse for the missile strike was retaliation for the assassinations of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27th, as well as the killing of Lebanese and Palestinian people.

This was Iran’s second attack on Israel after its  very first direct attack on Israel on the night of April 13th, 2024 with ballistic and cruise missiles and bomb-laden unmanned aerial vehicles. That strike was a response to the Israeli air strike on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus that killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

In addition to the usual use of its many proxies, Iran has attacked all of Israel directly by firing more than 300 missiles and suicide drones.

In response, Israel has launched a series of missile strikes on Iranian military sites, including one near Isfahan, Iran’s main nuclear research facility as well as other strategic military strikes. According to many Israeli opinions, it was a weak symbolic attack yielding to Biden’s request to avoid escalation. Nevertheless, it had some significance in exposing Iran’s weak defense systems.

The second Iranian attack October 1st sent the entire Israeli population to bomb shelters while Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles everywhere.

In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran “made a big mistake and will pay for it” and that Iran “does not understand” Israel’s “determination to retaliate” against its enemies. “They will understand,” said Netanyahu. “We will stand by the rule we established: whoever attacks us – we will attack.”
(Picture of a Bibi from USA Today)

In the two attacks, Iran has fired about 500 missiles and drones, and thank God, not a single Israeli has been killed. There have been just a few injuries and little damage.

Now the question is how and when Israel’s retaliation will occur. Israel has several options. 

Iran’s Nuclear Weapon

Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon is an existential threat to the Jewish state. striking Iranian nuclear facilities would be Israel’s first response to the Iranian massive attack.

However, while still claiming that America’s commitment continues to be very clear and ironclad on Israel’s security, US President Biden demands “an Israeli response that will look powerful but will not ignite the region and still put an end to the story.”

U.S. Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, is due to arrive in Israel over the weekend for what will likely be a series of meetings to discuss the situation. The main concern of the U.S. is that the Gulf States will be harmed as a result of Israel igniting the region through a massive attack on Iran’s oil and/or nuclear facilities. There were media reports of Iran threatening Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states oil facilities should Israel attack the same Iranian facilities.
Lt. Gen. Michael Kurilla testifies before the Senate Armed Services committee during his confirmation hearing on Feb. 8. (Susan Walsh/AP) Picture from DefenseNews

PM Netanyahu has threatened Iranian nuclear ambition for many years. Many in Israel see this planned retaliation as a window of opportunity for Netanyahu to do so. However, Israel has to consider the complexities and numerous consequences of such a strike. To be well protected, Iran has intentionally spread the nuclear sites across the country. The sites are hidden under rocky mountains, more than 1,000 miles away from Israeli Air Force bases, making it hard if not impossible to be targeted and cause severe damage.

However, Israel has spent years developing capabilities not yet seen in action.

The attacks on Isfahan and in Yemen demonstrate the Israeli air force can reach anywhere. 

American Directives

President Joe Biden suggested last week that Israel should not strike Iran’s oil and that he opposed strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Nevertheless, Israel is considering attacking Iran’s oil facilities or ports. Oil is critical to Iran. This could have severe consequences on global oil markets.

What Will Israel Do?

Another option is to strike government symbols, or military targets. Striking Iran’s missile depots would limit Iran’s capability to manufacture missiles. Such an attack would ignite the weapons and produce a spectacle for all the world to see. Hopefully, this would reinforce Israel’s deterrence among its enemies in the region. Can Israel eliminate all the threats from the head of the octopus and its proxies by using only military force?

We need to pray for wisdom to make the right decision at the right time. With God’s help, we pray for a supernatural victory.

“As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight. As long as our hostages are still in Gaza, we will continue to fight,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded television address, vowing not to give up on the “sacred mission” of achieving the war’s goals.

Last year on Yom Kippur, Israelis observed the holy day as usual  – kids riding bicycles in the streets and people attending local synagogues. Then October 7th happened – Black Sabbath!. This year many have truly joined in the whole month of repentance leading up to tonight – Yom Kippur. We pray that the Lord touch  our hearts as in the days of Esther, when the whole nation participated in repentance and fasting.
pray for our people in the synagogues that as they chant the regular prayers of repentance the Lord touch those hearts that truly seek Him, to return to Him through our Messiah Yeshua and worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. 

Thus says the Lord (The God of Israel) Who gives the sun for light by day; the ordinances of the moon and the stars for light by night; Who rouses the sea and its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): “If these ordinances ever depart from before Me,” says the Lord, “then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Jeremiah 31:35-36

If the enemies of God’s people, Israel, knew these scriptures from His Word, they would shoot their rockets and missiles at the sun, moon, and stars because only when they can destroy those ordinances could they destroy the people of God, and the seed of Israel would cease from being a nation before Him forever.

However, since they don’t know this formula of Israel’s destruction, they keep firing rockets at Israel.

Since last week, Iran and Hezbollah have been threatening Israel with reprisal attacks and many in Israel and around the world are expecting this to happen very soon. Some predict that it will happen on the 9^th of the Hebrew month of Av, the 13^th of August.

The 9^th of Av is the culmination of the 3 weeks called “Between the Straits.”

“From the straits I called to Yah”Psalm 118:5
The three weeks between the 17^th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av is known as “the Dire Between the Straits” (see Lamentations 1:3  “All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits”.)

The period of the Dire Straits starts on the 17^th of Tammuz (the month before Av), marking the breach and fall of Jerusalem’s walls and the destruction of her first and second temples on the Temple Mount on the same day, the 9^th of Av and most of the Jews going into exile – the first time to the Babylonian captivity for 70 years, and the second to a far greater Diaspora throughout the world for about 2000 years.

The Jews have experienced many calamities over the centuries, and it is amazing to learn that many of those calamities have occurred on the same day of the year, the 9th of Av.

The Destruction of the two Temples, especially the Second Temple, changed the path of Jewish History and the nation of Israel, dispersing the Jewish people among the nations.

Against all odds, the Jews have survived persecution, expulsions, relocation, pogroms, and calamities. Nonetheless, Jewish learning, wisdom, and tradition have not only survived but have flourished in many countries, enriching the world in many ways.

The 9^th of Av, Tisha b’Av, commemorates a list of catastrophes so severe that Jews believe God set it aside for their suffering.

 Jews Praying at Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, by Johann Martin Bernatz (Ottoman Archives, 1868)

Some of the catastrophes and calamities that happened to the Jews on the 9^th of Av were:

• The First Temple was destroyed on the 9^th of Av (423 BCE).
• In 70 CE, The Romans torched The Second Temple and destroyed it and much of Jerusalem on the same day as the First Temple.
• When the Jews remaining in the Land rebelled against Roman rule, they believed that their leader, Simon bar Kochba, would fulfill their messianic longings. But their hopes were cruelly dashed in 133 CE as the Jewish rebels were brutally butchered in the final battle at Betar. The date of this massacre was the 9^th of Av!
• One year after their conquest of Betar, the Romans plowed over the Jew’s holiest site, the Temple Mount.
• In 1290 CE on the 9^th of Av, the Jews were expelled from England.
• In 1492, the Golden Age for the Jews of Spain, freedom and prosperity ended when the Queen of Spain and her husband banished Jews from their land. The edict of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492, and the Jews were given exactly four months to leave the country. The Hebrew date on which no Jew was allowed any longer to remain in Spain was the 9^th of Av.
• World War II and the Holocaust were actually the outcome of World War I which began in 1914. The Hebrew date when Germany declared war on Russia setting the First World War into motion was the 9^th of Av.
• The evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005 occurred on the 9^th of Av. Two years later, In June 2007 the terrorist organization of Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. Since then, many thousands of rockets and mortar shells have been fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip onto southern Israeli towns and villages, terrorizing and destabilizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens. Now, since October 7th, 2023 when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, committing atrocities against Israeli men women, children, and soldiers, for the past ten months, Israel has been engaged in a terrible war against Hamas in Gaza, claiming many Israeli soldiers’ lives. Hamas’ creed is to destroy Israel as a Jewish nation and take over the land as their homeland of Palestine.

However, as the Lord God of Israel has promised in many prophecies to return His beloved Jewish people from the diaspora to the land of Israel, the Land of Promise, the Jewish state is a reality that is here to stay. The enemies’ plans to annihilate Israel and take over the land promised to the Jews, will never come to pass.

In fulfillment of God’s promises, Israel is back in the Land physically. Now God plans to bring them back to Him spiritually, through faith in Messiah Yeshua.

One day, Israel will look upon the pierced Yeshua (Zech. 12:10,) and will invite Him to return, proclaiming, “Baruch Haba Beshem Adonai, as Yeshua said: Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, (Matt. 23:39).

On that day, the day they see Him again, they will see Him as He is, their Messiah and Savior. They will mourn for Him as for a first-born Son (Zech. 12:10). And then, All Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:26.) On that day, God will turn their mourning into great joy again.

Please continue to pray for the salvation of Israel and the Jewish people – that God touch hearts of mourning on the 9^th of Av; that they recognize their rebellion against their God and repent and accept His Salvation, Yeshua.

Pray that until that day, Israel, with God’s help, stands against the enemy that wants to annihilate her and thwart God’s good plans for Israel.

Pray for victory over all God and Israel’s enemies, and that the Lord, the God of Israel, get all the glory, for His Name’s Sake. Amen

Image above: Tisha Be’av at the Western Wall 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem – The Jerusalem Post)