Here is the most recent post from Sister Ann Hansen, the LDS military mom living in Israel and seeing first hand some of the war efforts and problems in this new war scenario with Hamas and Gaza. I urge my readers to pass this information alo
ng to friends, and to pray for the safety, strength and courage of the Israelis to overcome their enemies, and for God to protect them. They are surrounded on three sides by their enemies, and on the fourth, by the Red Sea, whence they came to Canaan several thousand years ago, from Egypt, now also one of their enemies.
“Despite the “ceasefire” with Hamas, Israel remains very tense. Ceasefires here are basically times to regroup and re-arm. As one Israeli journalist said, “ceasefires are the periods in between the fighting.”
A British newspaper has already published a satelite photo of a ship in Iran being loaded with missiles. The ship is headed for Sudan, from where the missiles will make their way to Gaza. The Hamas leadership in Gaza says that re-arming themselves with missiles in no way violates the cease fire agreement.
On Sunday there was yet another incident of gun fire from Syria hitting soldiers in Israel. This is the fourth incident in less than a week. The last time the soldier (who was sitting in a jeep doing patrol duty on the border) was saved only because he was wearing his bullet-proof vest. The Israeli army says that the Sunday incident only involved gun fire from Syria, but residents of the Golan community of Aloni HaBashan say that mortars also fell there. Israel is walking a very fine line because any retaliation could spark a full-fledged war.
During the past two incidents, Israel responded by firing tank or artillery shells and wiping out the launch sites inside of Syria. This time we have not fired back, but increased our military presence on land and in the air. Yesterday I taught at a college on the south end of the Sea of Galilee. The noise from the fighter jets and the helicopters was quite disruptive to concentration during the test! It also didn’t do my heart any good to look out the window and see helicopters armed with missiles circling around the lake at such a low elevation. It is even more surreal to look out of my living room window at the serene, pastoral view of the wooden tourist boats on the lake, with the helicopters hovering overhead.
On Sunday the leader of Hisballah in southern Lebanon addressed thousands gathered for a religious event, inciting them to violence against Israel, and telling Israel that tens of thousands of missiles were directed at us, just waiting for an excuse “to rain terror on the Zionist dogs”. He also bragged that unlike those Hamas weaklings, the Hisballah has missiles which are capable of hitting everything from Metulla (Israel’s most northern community) to Eilat (Israel’s southernmost city). Our intelligence confirms this. Last week when mortars were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel, the Lebanese army the next day also discovered another rocket launch pad loaded and pointed towards us.
Meanwhile, Turkey (a member of NATO) has requested that NATO furnish them with Patriot missile batteries to put on their border with Syria, due to many incidences of artillery fire which has hit towns inside of Turkey. NATO reps are due in Turkey this week to check out where to place the batteries. Syria, Iran, Russia and China have protested vociferously, stating that Turkey is “provoking” conflict in the area! The
Patriots in Turkey are a double-edged sword, however. Under its current leadership, Turkey has moved further and further to becoming a religious Muslim country. It has gone from being an official ally of Israel to becoming its enemy. (Two weeks ago it put Israel’s goverment and milittary leadership on trial in absentia, condemning them to hundreds of years of life sentences for “murder”.) It has made no secret of its intentions of becoming the ruling power in the area, and it has frequently condemned the governments and countries of the West. Just as Turkey turned on Israel, it would have no conpunction about turning on its NATO allies. Not only is Turkey a large manufacturing country, it also controls land, sea and air routes between the Middle East and Europe.
On Sunday Israel successfully tested “The Sling of David”, an Israeli-developed system designed to intercept medium and smaller rockets and missiles which are too small for the Iron Dome system to get. I heard an interview with a reserves General who described the difference between Israel and Hamas: they fired 1600 rockets and missiles at Israeli civilian targets. Israel fired 1600 missiles in pinpoint attacks of military objectives. Hamas has spent time, money and resources to develop more powerful missiles. Israel has spent time, money and resources to develop missile intercept systems.
As I have been driving back and forth to work this week the roads have been full of military vehicles (tanks, APCs, field ambulances, command vehicles, etc.) and support equipment heading north. A lot of them are returning to the same positions from which they were pulled to go south to Gaza last week. Students and professors both have reported that their travel time has been more than doubled because of the heavy military traffic on the roads.
Several of my students who were gone for two weeks are now back in class, looking exhausted. None of them thinks that this is over.
On a more mundane note, another consequence of the past two weeks is that prices of tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables will be going up at least 50%, and probably more. Nearly all of the commerical potato and tomato crops are grown in the south in areas where the missiles have been falling. During the past two weeks farmers could not get into their fields to either water, weed or pick their crops.
At least we have had much needed rain this week.”
Ann, Israel
Note: Recent article on CNN gives more detail on this arms supply to Hamas.
Click on: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/26/