Stand with Israel.

There are a lot of questions and uncertainty, but this much is clear:

Make no mistake, this was an act of war.

A war that Israel did not start but will surely finish with the country intact. Israel declared a state of war on Saturday, but the war was started by Hamas terrorists. Early Saturday morning, terrorists hit Israel with thousands of rockets and attacked from the ground in convoys in at least 22 spots in southern Israel. They killed 800 Israelis and wounded over 2,000, making it the bloodiest day in the history of Israel.

Make no mistake, this was a planned massacre.

            Thousands had gathered in joy and celebration at the outdoor Supernova music festival in the desert of southern Israel. The event attracted almost 3,000 young people. The terrorists knew that. They charged in at 6 a.m. and gunned the young Israelis down as they ran for their lives. The terrorists killed at least 260 people and took dozens of hostages.

            Make no mistake, Iran is behind this.

            On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iranian security officials helped plan the surprise attack at a meeting in Beirut last week, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah. The United States and Israel had already designated both groups as terrorist organizations.

            “Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions – the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” the WSJ reported the sources as saying.

            Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the attacks, posting on X (formerly known as Twitter), “The Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces throughout the region.”

Make no mistake, Israel intelligence failed miserably.

            The scope of the attack was so vast, so broad, so intense, how were there no early signs, no wire taps, no tip offs? The terrorists used rockets, paragliders, trucks, bulldozers, motorcycles and boats. But their biggest weapon was surprise.

The surprise attack also caught the United States off guard. Where was our intelligence in the Mid-East? The best and brightest agents of our CIA?

             Both Israel and the U.S. are distracted by internal politics and divisions that have weakened both countries. Leaders in both countries at all levels are taking their collective eye off what matters most: national security and global stability. That cannot happen again. In both countries, there is such great political division and internal fighting that citizens are weakening their own countries. That, too, must end.

Make no mistake, the 150 plus hostages will be used as pawns to hold Israel hostage, because Israel cares more about human life than the terrorists do.

            The Times of Israel shared this account of the brutal murder of one elderly woman in Kibbutz Nir Oz: “My grandmother, my whole world, who lit up my life, a rock to me and my family, a resident of Nir Oz all her life, was viciously murdered yesterday by a terrorist in her home,” Mor Bayder wrote on Facebook. “At 7 a.m., I saw the nightmare of my life. A terrorist broke into her home, murdered her, took her phone, photographed the horror, and posted it on her Facebook account. That’s how we found out.”

Make no mistake, in the end, Palestinians will be worse off from the actions of Hamas, not better off.

Already, at least 413 Palestinians have been killed and 2,300 wounded in counterattacks by Israel. More lives will be lost.

One must ask, if the surrounding Arab nations care so much about the plight of the Palestinians, why haven’t they done more over these years to offer them a refuge and a home within their own borders? Couldn’t Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and/or Saudia Arabia offer poor Palestinians a better life than they have carved out on that overcrowded narrow strip of land they cling to?

This attack isn’t about granting Palestinians more land rights or freedom. This attack is a concerted attempt to erradicate Jews and their homeland, Israel.

            Make no mistake, the terrorists who yell, “God is great!” have no respect for God’s most sacred creation, human life.

            Sadly, the death toll will continue to grow on both sides, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a “long and difficult war” that will continue “with neither limitations nor respite until the objectives are achieved.”

            But as it rages on and grows bloodier and deadlier, make no mistake.

The terrorists started this.

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