Tragic Missile Strike in Bet Shemesh

We are now four days into the US-Israeli military campaign to bring down the fanatical Iranian regime. Here in Jerusalem, we have repeatedly hunkered in our bomb shelters as dozens of Iranian missile barrages sailed overhead on their way to Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Each time, the explosions from rocket interceptions above us got louder and the ground impacts came closer.

In fact, on Sunday we saw the tragic missile strike which leveled a synagogue and public bomb shelter in Beit Shemesh, only 12 miles from Jerusalem. Nine people have died from the blast so far. Entire families were wiped out. One woman lost her husband the day before they were supposed to celebrate their 13-year-old son’s bar mitzvah. Instead, the boy had to bury his father yesterday.              

Within hours of the Beit Shemesh disaster, Iran started deliberately targeting Jerusalem for the first time, using their best guided missiles. One unexploded warhead fell in the Hinnom Valley outside Jaffa Gate, just 500 meters from the Temple Mount. Another rocket blew a large crater in a main highway in Jerusalem. Iran even brazenly announced it had targeted Israeli government offices in “East Jerusalem.”

Like the Iranian attacks on numerous Arab countries, the missile barrages on Jerusalem are signs of a desperate regime in the last throes of their power. With the confirmed death of Ayatollah Ali Khameini and dozens of other senior Iranian leaders on day one, the Islamic Republic knows it is about to meet its end. Masses of Iranian people are longing for that moment, but we do not know yet exactly when it will come.

Since the war began on Saturday morning, many Christians have joined us in praying for a swift and decisive victory over the Iranian regime before the end of Purim on Wednesday. This festive biblical holiday marks a famous triumph of the Jewish people over their enemies within the ancient Persian empire. Thus, a resounding victory this week by the Jewish nation over its implacable enemies in Tehran would be so appropriate.

Still, Israeli authorities have told the public to expect the fighting to continue until at least March 12, while US President Donald Trump just said it could take three to four more weeks to finish the mission. We simply do not know how long this war will last and whether it might spread further throughout the region.

But what we do know is that right now Israel needs our help. This is a pivotal moment for the Jewish people gathered back in their ancestral homeland. A clear victory could radically change the dynamic in the region, expanding the prospects of Israel’s wider acceptance by its Arab neighbors. But they need to know that Christians are at their side, to give them the courage and stamina to endure the Iranian missiles now raining down on Israeli cities.

 

The World Must Listen to This Former Israeli Hostage

For months, the world has clung to a comforting illusion that Hamas can be “managed,” deterred, contained, reasoned with. That October 7th was an “outburst,” a “desperation move,” something that can be prevented next time with the right arrangements, the right mediators, the right formulas.

Segev Kalfon, kidnapped from the Nova music festival and held for hundreds of days inside Hamas terror tunnels, has come out with testimony that should shatter every fantasy still floating around in diplomatic circles. Senior Hamas officials told him directly: They have no problem promising Netanyahu that there would be no more October 7th massacres, as they would then massacre Jews on October 8th and October 9th instead.

From Hamas’s perspective, concepts like peace, de-escalation, or restraint are not end goals but tactical language— deception used as a tool of strategy. They frame temporary truces as pauses—much like the early Islamic precedent of a hudna.

Kalfon describes long conversations in the underground tunnels with the commander of Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion, a senior figure connected to Ismail Haniyeh’s inner circle. These were not low-level fighters. These were decision-makers. And according to them, the horror of October 7th was only considered a “mistake” for one reason: Iran, Hezbollah, and the broader Muslim world did not join the war.

They did not regret their actions of slaughtering babies, burning people alive or raping, kidnapping and mutilating them. No.

They regretted it because they were left to fight alone.Think about what that means.

From inside the tunnels, from the mouths of those running this terror army, the regret is not moral—it is logistical. Their complaint was not that they went too far. It was that their partners did not show up.

This aligns perfectly with what we have seen for decades: a worldview where deception is a tool, where “agreements” are tactical, and where the ultimate goal is not coexistence, but elimination.

Kalfon also recounts Hamas leaders openly mocking Qatar and the broader Muslim world. The objective was not negotiations or leverage. It was annihilation. The language of “understandings,” “arrangements,” or a so-called “day after” is not taken seriously by them. It is a stage prop. A tactic. A mask.

This is not a theory or an analysis. This is first hand testimony from a man who sat face-to-face with Hamas leadership while they believed they had all the time in the world.

And yet, even now, there are still voices talking about rebuilding Gaza with Hamas still breathing, about “stabilization,” about international frameworks that assume this is a conflict that can be cooled rather than an ideology that must be defeated.

We are not dealing with a rational adversary seeking a better political arrangement. We are dealing with a jihadi Islamic enemy that openly says its only regret was not killing more Jews with more help.

Anyone still clinging to illusions should listen carefully.

Gaza must be cleared of all jihadi Muslims who educate their children in United Nations UNRWA schools to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

The truth came out of the tunnels.

Why Putting Turkey, Qatar in Charge of Gaza is a Farce

                          

Michael Freund, full article at  https://tinyurl.com/52dn9b9b

The article argues that the Trump administration’s reported plan to place Turkey and Qatar on a “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza is fundamentally flawed and dangerous. The author contends that both countries are not neutral mediators but active enablers of Hamas: Qatar is described as Hamas’s main financial patron and host of its leaders, while Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, openly defends Hamas, rejects its designation as a terrorist organization, and uses extreme anti-Israel rhetoric.

According to the article, neither Ankara nor Doha has ever called for Hamas to disarm, relinquish control of Gaza, or abandon its charter. Instead, Hamas is portrayed as strategically useful to both states as a proxy against Israel and a source of Islamist legitimacy. Expecting them to dismantle Hamas is therefore, in the author’s view, unrealistic and absurd.

The piece concludes that any Gaza “peace plan” that does not begin with the complete dismantling of Hamas is doomed to fail. By elevating Turkey and Qatar—without prior consultation with Israel—the U.S. is said to be undermining Israel’s security and rewarding Hamas’s backers. The author warns that this approach will not bring peace, but rather entrench Hamas further and pave the way for future conflict.

When the next round of violence erupts – as it inevitably will – no Board of Peace and no communiques or diplomatic euphemisms will obscure those who enabled it or the responsibility they bear for the consequences.