Things of ominous import are ratcheting up in the Syrian and Lebanese regions of the Middle East cauldron. So high have rumors of a major Israeli strike soon to come raised fears that Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian dictator, has deemed to take his entire family on vacation somewhere distant from Damascus.
Both Israeli and Arab press report Assad has abandoned the Syrian capital and that he did so suddenly and with little announcement.
The latest war-making revolves around the IDF taking out a major Iranian terrorist leader/diplomat in a building near the Iranian Embassy.
Iran has gone on a campaign of threat that has everyone in the region on high alert. Israel fully expects there will be retaliation, probably of a spectacular sort, for the taking out of senior Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus in a strike upon a building adjoining the Iranian consulate.
(See update below.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and high-ranking members of the IDF have vowed severe actions if Iran does something dastardly in retaliation for taking out one of their most heinous terrorist plotters.
Israel has constantly been battling Lebanese military forces on the border of Syria and holds Syria responsible for allowing those forces to launch attacks and retreat to within Syria. Israeli military command has vowed that action will be taken to eliminate threats from Lebanon, even if Damascus is involved.
Iran has, rather than back down, vowed to make Israel pay for the killing of their Guard. Most who keep close tabs on the situation in the region believe this is the cause of Assad and his family taking the sudden leave, claiming it’s vacation time.
The following news excerpt further enlightens on the volatile situation that threatens stepped-up war-making.
In a message to Israel, Iran sent its foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdollahian, to Damascus on Monday, a week after an airstrike in the city struck a building adjoining its consulate, killing senior Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi. Iran has vowed revenge on Israel, accusing it of the strike…
He paid tribute to the Syrian and “Iranian martyrs” during his visit and also slammed Israel.
During the visit, Syria said that it does not recognize the “Zionist regime.” Under the Assad regime, Syria was always one of the holdouts in the region that did not recognize Israel and has considered itself part of the “axis of resistance” linked to Iran. However, the Assad regime has known since the mid-1970s that it will never defeat Israel.
Since the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011, the regime in Damascus was weakened, and so invited Iran to send over militias and the IRGC. Iran then used Syria as a testing ground for its militias to move weapons to Hezbollah and drones to Syria.
Starting in 2018, Iran began to increase threats to Israel from Syria, using drones flown from the T-4 base near Palmyra and built a base near al-Bukamal called Imam Ali. It also encouraged Hezbollah to open the “Golan file” and move Hezbollah members closer to the border. Hezbollah has been attacking Israel since October 8.
Russia and Iran manipulate Syria for different goals
Syria has now joined Iran in publicly slamming Israel, claiming it is helping “mobilize” the international community against Jerusalem. However, the real powers behind the throne in Damascus are both Russia and Iran. They may not always agree on everything, but Russia has exploited the Hamas war on Israel for its benefit, which Iran has done as well, hoping to isolate and weaken Israel. Iran’s message in sending its envoy is that it will continue to seek to punish Israel.
[Source: Iran FM threatens Israel amid symbolic visit to Damascus, By SETH J. FRANTZMANAPRIL, APRIL 8, 2024 The Jerusalem Post]
(And now an important news update from the time this commentary was begun.)
Iran directly attacked Israel, sending drones and a few missiles toward Israel –around 300 in total. None landed within Israeli territory but were destroyed or landed outside Israel’s boundaries.
One 7-year-old Arab girl in a Bedouin village was seriously injured in the attack and was reported as hospitalized.
The Jerusalem Post reported the following.
The IDF has updated that the full Iranian attack consisted of over 300 threats, of which 100 were ballistic missiles launched from Iran. Another 30 cruise missiles were launched from the Islamic Republic, along with drones. There were also two rounds of rockets, around 40 total, fired on Israel from Lebanon, with Israel responding with counterattacks in close to real-time…
Israel, the U.S., the U.K., and Jordan worked to intercept the drones and missiles over Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, according to foreign reports. France also assisted in shooting down the aerial threats.
[Source: Iran attacks Israel: No drones, cruise missiles breached Israeli airspace, By YONAH JEREMY BOB, TZVI JOFFRE, TOVAH LAZAROFFAPRIL 13, 2024 22:47 Updated: APRIL 14, 2024 10:36, Jerusalem Post]
A CBS news report said that President Joe Biden called Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu after the attack on Israel and told him the United States won’t support a retaliatory action against Iran – that the U.S. doesn’t want a wider conflict in the region.
Damascus is known to be the city that harbors headquarters for practically every official Muslim terrorist organization that exists. Iran is known to be sponsor for a number of these. This fact might well be the primary catalyst for bringing about the city’s Biblically Forecast doom.
To the observer of these prophetic times, the likely implication of things heating up by the moment involving Syria can’t be missed. The Isaiah prophecy comes instantly to mind when thinking on all of this that is developing so quickly.
“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isa 17:1).
We can’t know if Bashar Al-Assad has studied Bible prophecy and has looked at this Isaiah Foretelling. But his sudden decision to get out of Dodge –rather, out of Damascus—sure makes it seem as if he has seen the handwriting on the wall…
With such tyrants, such allusions or idiomatic expressions probably don’t come close to applying. But to “Watchers on the wall,” it seems appropriate to conclude that the “handwriting is on the wall” and that Isaiah’s Damascus Foretold fate might well be determined to be forming at this present hour.