On this day one year ago, Hamas rampaged, murdered, violated, and destroyed the peace of an Israeli Saturday morning. The unspeakable behavior of the Iran-backed terrorists resulted in crimes against the unsuspecting Jewish citizens in Kibbutzim just outside the Hamas Gaza enclave. What happened is difficult to wrap one's mind around. Now, a year later, Hamas remains – and the fighting continues.
Hamas Began a War That It Will Regret
On October 7, 2023, shortly after 6:00 a.m. local time, an attack by Iran-supplied Hamas terrorists began against Israel called "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” Palestinian militias launched a barrage of rockets into Israel. In a coordinated assault, Gazans and Hamas murderers on motorcycles and in pickup trucks breached the northern Gaza Strip border and began an indiscriminate killing spree. As The Jerusalem Post recently revealed:
Of the 6,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel, some 3,800 were identified as Nukhba terrorists – members of Hamas's elite forces. Additionally, N12 [News site] disclosed that according to the findings, 4,300 rockets were fired by some 1,000 terrorists in Gaza, a significantly higher amount than earlier believed. The probe also revealed that 2,200 Gazans, including both terrorists and looters, participated in the attack, further escalating the chaos and violence that marked the day.
Over 1,200 Israelis, along with 33 Americans, were slaughtered by thuggish bands of terrorists who killed infants, children, men, and women. Young women were raped. Men were beheaded. Children and infants were burned alive. It's hard to imagine such institutional insanity exists – but Hamas proved that it does.
Young people celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, were gunned down at a concert when Hamas attacked the Tribe of Nova music festival, leaving 270 dead. Many of those attempting to escape were run down and killed or taken hostage. "Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and took another 250 hostages. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead," the Associated Press reports. Four Americans taken captive on the day of the murderous assault believed to be still alive are Keith Siegel, Edan Alexander, Omer Neutra, and Sagui Dekel-Chen.
Often, Americans lose sight of what the Iran-sponsored Hamas terrorist attack on Israel means in the context of other terrorist attacks. Shortly after the October 7 horror, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published an analysis comparing the Hamas attack with other similar historical terrorist assaults. The October 7 terrorist attack is surpassed in magnitude of lives lost only by the ISIS massacre of 1,700 Iraqi military cadets at Camp Speicher in northern Iraq in June 2014 and the al-Qaeda 9/11 attack on the US, when 2,336 were killed.
Today, one year later, the IDF is going about destroying Hamas in a workman-like process. Additionally, the IDF is systematically eliminating the Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, bordering Israel to the north. In a discussion about the IDF taking out the Hezbollah leadership and destroying its missile and rocket stockpiles, former US Army Vice Chief of Staff Jack Keane told Fox News: "What the Israelis have done in Lebanon is absolutely stunning and unprecedented in my frame of reference."
Old Testament Warnings Prove Prescient
In a speech just three weeks after the Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked Deuteronomy 25:17: "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt." After escaping the Egyptians, the Israelites passed by the Amalekites, who attacked the rear of the group where the women and children walked. It did not go well for the people of Amalek. "And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven," Exodus 17: 8-16 reveals.
Attacking Israel on October 7 may have been an Amalekite moment for Hamas and Hezbollah – and it seems this could include Iran soon enough. The IDF believes it is doing Joshua's work. Looking back over the year since Israel was attacked, if history is any indicator of the future, Israel will prevail.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
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