Is the current eruption of violence and conflict in the Middle East a prelude to World War III?
The United States sees the prospect of a significant escalation in attacks on its troops in the Middle East and of Iran seeking to widen the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group, the top U.S. diplomat and defense officials said on Sunday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the United States did not want to see the conflict spread and that recent U.S. deployments to the region were designed to prevent this.
“This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for. We don’t want escalation,” Mr. Blinken told NBC News on Sunday. “We don’t want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we’re ready for it.”
Of course, no one can predict the future except God. But there are great risks with the coming fight in Gaza. Israel has already warned both Hezbollah and their state-sponsor Iran to stay out of it.
Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the country had increased airstrikes across Gaza to hit targets that would reduce the risk to troops in the next stage of the war.
Fears of a widening war grew as Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza, two airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used by militants.
Israel has traded fire with Hezbollah militants since the war began, and tensions are soaring in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have battled militants in refugee camps and carried out two airstrikes in recent days.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told troops in northern Israel that if Hezbollah launches a war, “it will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating.”
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Israel repeated its calls for people to leave northern Gaza, including by dropping leaflets from the air. It estimated 700,000 have already fled. But hundreds of thousands remain. That would raise the risk of mass civilian casualties in any ground offensive.
Israeli military officials say Hamas’ infrastructure and underground tunnels are concentrated in Gaza City, in the north, and that the next stage of the offensive will include unprecedented force there. Israel says it wants to crush Hamas. Officials have also spoken of carving out a buffer zone to keep Palestinians from approaching the border, though they have given no details.
“Unprecedented force.” That means ratcheting up the power of the munitions and engaging in curb-stomping violence. Israel has also been attacking in Syria to prevent engagement there.
Syrian state media, meanwhile, reported that Israeli airstrikes hit the international airports in the capital, Damascus, and the northern city of Aleppo, killing one person and putting the runways out of service.
Israel has carried out several strikes in Syria since the war began. Israel rarely acknowledges individual strikes, but says it acts to prevent Hezbollah and other militants from bringing in arms from Iran, which also supports Hamas.
And if Iran refuses to stand down?
Israel last night vowed to cut off ‘the head of the snake’ and launch a military attack against Iran if Tehran-backed terror group Hezbollah joins the war.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Nir Barkat, Israel’s Minister of Economy, warned that Iran’s Ayatollahs will be ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ should Hezbollah, their proxy terror group in Lebanon, attack Israel.
His incendiary comments raise the grave spectre of a rapidly escalating regional conflict and come ahead of an expected Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to ‘annihilate’ Hamas.
How could Israel wipe Iran off the face of the earth?
Nuclear weapons, my friends.
Israel has a three-stage plan for their war on Hamas.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant laid out Israel’s war aims in three stages while speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Friday.
The war against Hamas was unavoidable and a “war of no choice,” Gallant told the committee members.
He went on to give an overview of the army’s operations so far, before presenting his strategic aims for the war, which will be reached in three stages.
“We are in the first phase, in which a military campaign is taking place with [air]strikes and later with a [ground] maneuver with the purpose of destroying operatives and damaging infrastructure in order to defeat and destroy Hamas,” Gallant said.
“The second phase will be an intermediate phase, continuing the fighting at a lower intensity and eliminating pockets of resistance.”
“The third phase will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for daily life there, and the creation of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of the surrounding area,” Gallant explained.
Big changes are coming both there, and potentially here in America. We’re already seeing a surge in Jewish citizens arming themselves.
Firearm instructors and Jewish security groups across the country say they have been flooded with new clientele since Hamas assaulted Israel on Oct. 7. And gun shop owners in Florida say they have seen more Jews purchase firearms in recent weeks than ever before.
“We’ve definitely seen a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms,” said David Kowalsky, who owns Florida Gun Store in the town of Hollywood, and also offers firearms training classes. “I’ve seen a surge in interest in individual training as well as group training.”
For those of you who cheered the ouster of a president who kept us out of any new wars because of his MeAn TwEeTs, congratulations on your choice. Your adults are back in charge, baby!