The Times April 22
Event
The Israeli air force and Palestinian militants traded fire across the Gaza frontier yesterday as clashes reignited at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
The exchanges worsened an escalation in conflict that mirrors the lead-up to last year’s Israel-Gaza war. The violence along the Gaza front, fuelled by the unrest between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem, appears to be the heaviest cross-border fighting since last year’s 11-day war, in which more than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel were killed.
The rocket attack on Sderot came hours after an earlier launch. However, the first rocket misfired and fell inside Gaza. The Israeli military said that it responded by striking at an “underground complex in Gaza used to produce rocket engines’’ and also hitting a Hamas training base. The Palestinians have accused Israeli police of using excessive force at the holy site, and Palestinian social media have been filled with videos showing Israeli forces striking what seem to be unarmed Arabs, including women.
Comment
Tension is increasing rapidly now behind the scenes between Israel and Iran. The Iran nuclear talks have stalled. In fact they were just a day or two away from being signed when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Iran controls the trouble in and around Israel. It literally activates and ferments violence when it wants to. Hamas & Hezbollah don’t do anything without their paymasters say so. The violence on Temple Mount, in the middle of April, has now led to rockets from Gaza and airstrikes from Israel. This violence is exactly how things develop into the type of conflict we have seen before. Once again the epicentre of the trouble is the Temple Mount. The very place where Solomon built the first temple for God. It became the most holy place on earth – currently with the Dome of the Rock (a Muslim shrine) built on it. It will one day be the very centre of God’s kingdom with all nations flowing to it to learn of His ways. But until then it is the epicentre of conflict….
when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the LORD,.., the LORD appeared to Solomon… And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. (1 Kings 9:1-3)
Andy Walton
From the Weekly World Watch
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Preceding
Clashes at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem leave more than 150 injured
Jeshuaisten / Jeshuaists 