Israel Declares War Following Hamas Terror Strikes That Have Killed Over 650 Israelis

Biden continues to appease Iranian terror regime as Hamas uses US weapons supplied by Ukraine and Afghanistan to kill Israelis while capturing and killing some American citizens

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares war on Hamas in response to massive terrorist attacks on Israel

October 9th Update: Israel has mobilized 300,000 reserve troops, constituting 75% of their available Israeli Ground Forces reservists in the last 48 hours which is the largest call-up in their history since the Yom Kippur War of 1973 as they prepare to invade the Gaza Strip with overwhelming force. Meanwhile, Fox News reports nine Americans have been killed by Hamas since the war began. Hamas has reportedly refused an Israeli cease-offer mediated by Anthony Blinken in exchange for returning Israeli prisoners of war stating that they were confident of victory since the US has sent 80% of its 155mm artillery munitions totaling 300,000 rounds stored in Israel to Ukraine so Israel is hoping to buy time to replenish their depleted stockpile. If true, that would mean that only 75,000 rounds remain in Israel. By way of comparison, Israel expended 34,000 rounds in its 2014 Gaza War which lasted 18 days. This war is likely to last substantially longer and the US is running very low on 155mm rounds to resupply them with due to the fact that we have given over 4.4 million 155mm howitzer rounds, rockets and mortar shells to Ukraine. Finally, General Jack Keane (USA Ret) revealed in a Fox News interview that Hezbollah has 130,000 rockets which they are likely to use to completely overwhelm Iranian missile defenses after Israel invades Gaza.

Yesterday, Hamas began a massive rocket attack and terrorist incursions against the State of Israel consisting of 5,000 rockets overwhelming Israel’s Iron Dome defense system and impacting targets all along Israel’s territory. In an unprecedented breach of Israeli security, Hamas militants successfully infiltrated two Israeli military bases (Re’im and Kerem Shalom). They also took at least 100 Israelis hostage including a number of Israeli troops, reportedly including some senior military officers reported including Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Major General Nimrod Aloni (though Israel has not verified this claim), and civilians hostage warning that Israel should not strike Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, or they will risk killing their own citizens.

Hamas even used an Iranian combat drone to destroy a state-of-the-art Israeli Merkava IV main battle tank. The Islamic Republic of Iran has declared its full support for these massive Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, which according to an article published today in the Wall Street Journal were planned in close coordination with the Iranian government over the past several months with Iran only green-lighting the attacks this past week.

The death toll is rising fast. The Israeli Ministry of Health estimates Israeli losses as 650 killed and 2,156 wounded with at least 370 dead Palestinians and 2,200 injured. This morning, Hezbollah joined the fray conducting rocket attacks against northern Israel provoking Israeli air and missile attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. The Israeli government is still trying to retake control of its territory but is mobilizing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of IDF reservists to invade the Gaza Strip in what appears to be a repeat of the 2014 Gaza War which is sure to provoke a massive Hezbollah response.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the unprecedented terrorist strikes by declaring Israel was in a state of war but noticeably did not say who Israel was at war with. Obviously, Israel considers itself at war with Hamas and likely will soon with Hezbollah but perhaps the reason he didn’t say who Israel was at war with is because he believed Israel might soon be at war with two or three state or non-state actors. In fact, it is possible that Israel might soon be at war with Iran whether either country actually declares war against the other or not.

One analyst said that this attack was so well-coordinated and extensive that it likely took a year for Hamas to plan it. The vaunted Israeli military and intelligence services appear to have been taken completely by surprise as Hamas attackers breached supposedly unbreachable barriers undetected and invaded Israel by land, sea and air with Hamas commandos even flying paragliders into an Israeli rave to kill and kidnap scores of Israelis. Hamas terrorists brutally shot and killed Israeli citizens in their own homes and streets and committed hundreds of senseless atrocities against civilians.  US intelligence also failed to provide Israel with any advance warning of the attack despite the fact that the US maintains the world’s largest signals intelligence satellite network. One of the reasons for this massive Israeli intelligence failure may have been a massive Iranian cyber attack that hacked its systems and prevented Israel from detecting the surprise attack. If true, this could be related to the U.S. having recently given a team of Iranian agents high-level access to U.S. intelligence, which could very well have included information about Israeli defense and surveillance systems.

The Hamas terrorist organization was created by Israel in 1987 in an attempt to counter the secular, leftwing Fatah organization that Israel perceived as its biggest threat at the time. This weekend’s Hamas terror attacks on Israel highlights the potential for massive blowback that can be created by backing hardline Islamist militants much like the fateful CIA decision to arm and train the mujahadeen to fight the Soviets during the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989 including Bin Laden and other future Al Queda terrorist leaders who subsequently killed nearly 3,000 Americans in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Back when I was serving on the US Army HQ staff as an International Programs Manager in June 2001, I traveled to Tel Aviv as a member of a US Department of Defense delegation to negotiate an Armaments Cooperation Research and Development agreement with Israel. I arrived in Israel three months to the day before the September 11, 2001, attacks. We stayed in the David Ben Gurion Hotel located near the beach by the Dolphinarium discotheque which had been bombed only ten days earlier, signaling the beginning of the Second Intifada. Due to the heightened threat of a terrorist attack against Americans, we weren't allowed to leave the hotel without an Israel military escort.

The thing that I found most interesting is how many women I saw in uniform since Israel drafts both men and women for compulsory military service, perhaps by necessity given the fact that its territory is small, and it is surrounded by enemies. Israel is a fairly militarized country with nearly 6.5% of Israel’s population currently serve in the Israeli Defense Force either on active-duty or as reservists. If the US had a similar percentage of its population in uniform, the size of our military would be more than 21.7 million uniformed personnel. Despite having such a comparatively large military establishment, Israel’s defenses proved insufficient in this instance to shield its citizens against this massive surprise terrorist attack.

A senior Israeli official stated that the massive Hamas attacks of this weekend are Israel’s 9-11. Over 650 Israeli citizens have been killed thus far with thousands more wounded which is a nearly seven and a half times higher percentage of their population than the nearly 3,000 Americans that were killed in the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 is a percentage of ours. Just as with the Al Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, this attack happened on a major anniversary in this case on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 which was a coordinated surprise attack against Israel which enjoyed substantial success before Israel was able to push back the Arab coalition’s military incursions.

Hamas has stated that its attacks are just the first salvo in what it expects will be “a long war” against Israel. The primary reason for the attacks was to prevent Israel from concluding a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia and there is no question it will be successful in accomplishing that objective as Israel’s planned invasion of the Gaza Strip will make the agreement politically impracticable from a Saudi perspective. The Palestinian Authority put out a statement yesterday stating that the Hamas attacks are justified because Israel won't agree to allow them to become a state but that is untrue. PM Ehud Barak offered them 95% of the West Bank as part of a two-state solution in 2000. They could have declared statehood anytime since and Israel wouldn't have stopped them. Hamas reportedly hopes to trade its Israeli hostages and likely dozens more it plans to take in the next several days for the return of all Palestinian prisoners currently imprisoned by Israel.

Following the attacks and Israeli military retaliatory strikes which have killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians, thousands of Arabs living in Israel have begun rioting. These riots provide a cautionary warning that diversity is not a strength but is rather a potential weakness that can be exploited by a nation's enemies to its detriment. The Biden administration should take notice and reverse its policy of allowing seven million illegal immigrants invade the US to date including dozens of individuals from our terrorist watch list and about 70,000-80,000 Chinese military age men, most of which are likely PLA Special Forces with the mission of infiltrating the U.S. and engaging in sabotage attacks against US military targets and bases, the US electrical grid, assassinations of US political and military leaders and perhaps even biological warfare attacks if President Biden follows through on his pledge to defend Taiwan militarily if the PRC invades it sometime next year as seems likely.

Israel’s Plans to Strike Back

Israel’s Cabinet met yesterday to authorize a massive counterattack. Israel is currently conducting bombing strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza while massing tanks and other armored fighting vehicles on the borders of the Gaza Strip poised to invade it, an action which Hezbollah has stated will provoke Hezbollah to enter the war against Israel. The Israeli government is urging residents of the border communities along its border with Lebanon to evacuate to protect them from potential Hezbollah cross-border raids. The IDF is sending thousands more troops to its northern border with Lebanon to repel a potential Hezbollah terrorist incursion from Lebanon.

This war will largely end up being a repeat of the 2014 Gaza War with a full-scale Israeli invasion and occupation of the Gaza Strip to neutralize the Hamas terrorist threat followed by an Israeli military withdrawal. But whereas Israel’s previous occupation of Gaza lasted only several weeks, this time the Israeli military occupation could last several months. It is possible that we could also see more Israeli military incursions into the West Bank. However, I don't think another Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon is likely and I think the chances of this becoming another interstate Yom Kipper War of 1973 are low.

Syria is very unlikely to intervene in the war militarily as they have their hands full fighting off US and Turkish backed rebel incursions while the Islamic Republic of Iran would have to send its troops across friendly territory in Iraq and Syria to reach Israel. Israel has never conducted any direct military strikes against Iran due to the distance separating the two adversarial states so the chances of Israel retaliating against Iran for its support of the Hamas attacks with kinetic strikes are quite minimal. Rather, Israel will opt to retaliate with a major cyberattack against Iran as they have done in the past.

Biden Has Israeli Blood on His Hands

A Profile in Corruption and Cowardice-America’s oldest, most corrupt, most senile and most illegitimate President in US history.

It is impossible to overestimate what an incredibly disastrous President Joe Biden has been since he assumed power nearly three years ago. America was prosperous and at peace. Today, Biden is fiddling as the world burns, mostly due to his malfeasance. The Hamas Iranian proxy terrorist attacks on Israel represent the penultimate failure of the Obama-Biden foreign policy which has centered around promoting peace in the Middle East by accommodating the Islamic Republic of Iran with its 2015 so-called Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) agreement which basically provided Iran with $152 billion with which it utilized to finish developing nuclear weapons. The purpose of the agreement was ostensibly for Iran to suspend its nuclear weapons program with the most laughably unenforceable verification measures of any modern-day arms control agreement in the naive hope that Iran would stop engaging in terrorist attacks against the US and Israel.

Before and shortly after President George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, I warned that a US invasion of Iraq which overthrew Saddam Hussein, who had fought a war against Iranian terror supported by President Ronald Reagan during the 1980’s, would destroy the balance of power in the Middle East and create a power vacuum which the Islamic Republic of Iran would rush to fill installing an Iranian Shiite Islamist proxy government in Iraq effectively transforming Iran into the regional hegemon of the Persian Gulf.

In an excellent article entitled “America’s Betrayal of Israel,” Liel Leibovitz attacked both the Obama and Biden administration’s for pursing an “Iran First/Israel Last” policy in the Middle East:  

“For the better part of the past decade, the United States has pursued a foreign policy designed to strengthen Iran and enable it to form a strong sphere of influence in the region. This is the idea behind what Tony Badran and Michael Doran called “the realignment,” a vision of a new world order in which America partners with Iran in order to “find a more stable balance of power that would make [the Middle East] less dependent on direct U.S. interference or protection.” Those words aren’t Badran and Doran’s; they’re Robert Malley’s, Barack Obama’s lead negotiator on the Iran deal who, as Semafor reported this week, helped to infiltrate an Iranian agent of influence into some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. government—first at the State Department and now the Pentagon, where she has been serving as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Biden himself, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, spoke of “an integrated Middle East,” using the phrase no less than three times to make clear that his administration was intent on pursuing his predecessor’s commitment to seeing Iran not as a U.S. foe but as our collaborator.”

Former CIA analyst Sam Faddis with whom I serve with on the Committee for the Present Danger-China published an excellent article about Biden regime collusion with our avowed Iranian enemy leading to this unprecedented Iranian attack on America’s Israeli ally reporting that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated with a straight face that the Biden administration has seen no evidence to date indicating Iranian support for the assault. Biden directed large stockpiles of US arms and munitions prepositioned in Israel to help defend it against enemy aggression shipped to Ukraine over Israeli government protests. After initially urging Israel to act with restraint in the face of this full-scale terrorist attack, Biden has since declared full US support for Israel in the present conflict.

I recently read an article speculating that one of the reasons Biden may be trying to align with the Islamic Republic of Iran so the US can expand its liberal empire into former Soviet Central Asia which historically has been dominated by Russia. Apparently, no one told Biden that Iran is a formal member of the Sino-Russian military alliance and that there is no chance of that ever happening under the current anti-American Islamist regime. Rather than succeeding in getting Iran to reduce its terrorist attacks in the region, Communist China mediated a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia and now they have been both granted official observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which is the Sino-Russian alliance.

In terms of his policies, Biden has proven to be of the most if not the most anti-Israel President the US has ever had. He has attacked Israel repeatedly claiming the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu is the most “extreme” Israel has ever had. Biden likely has Israeli blood on his hands. A few weeks ago, he released another $6 billion to the Islamic Republic of Iran, as part of an ill-advised hostage deal, on top of the massive cash payment he and Obama sent them eight years ago while loosening US economic sanctions on Iran allowing them to export millions of barrels more oil.

In addition, the Taliban government of Afghanistan is boasting that they sent a large number of US weapons to Hamas to help them liberate Palestine. When he pulled out all US troops out of Afghanistan in 2021, Biden infamously left about $58 billion worth of modern US weapons behind in Afghanistan including US helicopters, attack aircraft, thousands of armored fighting vehicles and hundreds of thousands of machine guns and assault rifles which the Taliban inherited. US-armed Taliban forces are also reportedly trying to get permission from Iran, Iraq and Syria/Jordan to send thousands of Taliban fighters to join Hamas and Hezbollah in attacking Israel.

Hamas is now claiming that Ukraine sold it the US funded weapons to attack Israel. This claim seems credible give the recent CBS News documentary which reported that only 30% of US and NATO weapons sent to Ukraine are reaching front line troops. Most of the rest are being sold on the black market including to Russian buyers according to a neocon congressman. If Ukraine is selling US weapons to the Russians, why not to Hamas? Once again Biden has Israeli blood on his hands not only from US aid to Iran but from US military aid to Ukraine as well.

I have seen some conservatives suggest that the Biden regime may have deliberately encouraged Hamas to attack Israel, but my question is what would be the Democrat angle in provoking a war on Israel? With Ukraine, Biden provoked the Russians to invade at least in part to use it as a massive Democrat money laundering information to help them win the 2022 US Senate elections. However, I have yet to see any credible argument as to how the Biden regime would stand to benefit from a new Israeli war on terror leading to Israeli invasions of its neighbors.

The USS Gerald Ford, one of the US Navy’s most modern supercarriers

Secretary State Anthony Blinken is confirming that Hamas has taken a number of US citizens hostage some of whom may have already been killed in the Hamas terrorist attacks and Israeli counterstrikes. The Israeli Ambassador to the US stated this morning that there are dozens of Israeli-Americans who have been taken hostage by Hamas. the Biden administration has sent the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group which includes the guided missile cruiser USS Normandy and four guided missile destroyers, to the eastern Mediterranean as a show of force against Hamas, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate them into freeing U.S. hostages.

Wouldn't it be great if US leaders started carrying more about Israel than Ukraine? I would rather we ship large quantities of weapons to Israel than Ukraine as without weapon and ammo shipments Ukraine would be forced to agree to a cease-fre and armistice agreement with Russia and thereby end the immediate threat of nuclear/super-EMP cyberattack to the US homeland.

Fears the War Could Escalate to Include the U.S.

While some Americans are alarmed that this new Israel war on terror could end up spreading to an all-out war with Iran and Syria perhaps even leading to US military involvement, the chances of that are low. The US has no mutual defense pact with Israel and so we are not committed to defend Israel militarily. Accordingly, the chances of the US being dragged into the war in Israel are very low. However, we do have an agreement under which the US has committed to supply Israel with the weapons it needs to defend itself against armed attack. Americans should feel much more threatened by Biden's foolish continuing war against Russia in Ukraine that could escalate to a massive cyberwar between the US and Russia at any moment or the prospect of a nuclear World War Three breaking out with Russia, China, and North Korea sometime next year in response to Biden’s repeated pledges to defend Taiwan militarily.  

Some are suggesting that the US allow Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities which Bush and Obama blocked during their administrations by refusing to provide Israel with our friend and foe transponder codes to allow them to safely overfly Iraqi territory. Unfortunately, we are a decade or two too late in allowing them to strike Iranian nuclear facilities as Tehran has already developed and deployed nuclear missiles likely testing them in North Korea in 2016 which not uncoincidentally is the only year that they conducted two underground nuclear tests.

The State of Israel is a great power and has more than sufficient military capabilities to defend themselves against non-state actors like Hamas. Israel is now massing tanks on the border with the Gaza Strip which they will likely overrun and occupy within a week at most, likely leading to the deaths of many thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in an ensuing urban warfare campaign. Unfortunately, that could provoke further attacks from the north from Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in the West Bank which in turn will provoke Israeli stripes in response. This Israeli war on terror is unlikely to escalate to a major war with Syria or Iran since Israel has 300 nukes and Iran likely has no more than a dozen or so. If Israel doesn’t escalate the conflict beyond invading the Gaza Strip and conducting airstrikes against Hezbollah, Iran will just keep fighting a proxy war rather than a direct war against Israel. While Hamas started this war, Israel will most assuredly end it with an Israeli military victory.

On the other hand, if Israeli officials determine that Iran was, in fact, behind the attack, they have reportedly pledged to assassinate Iran’s top leadership. This could spark a full-scale regional war with a potential though unlikely possibility of leading to nuclear escalation between the two nuclear powers while presenting the US with the possibility of being involved in fighting four major wars at the same time if China invades Taiwan and North Korea invades South Korea following a US decision to defend Taiwan militarily.

Biden Making US Military Weaker

While Biden continues to attempt to present the illusion of US military strength abroad in conflicts across the globe while provoking conflicts across the world most notably in Ukraine and now in Israel, which have the potential to embroil the US in a direct war, the unfortunate truth is that the US military has never been weaker relative to its enemies. The latest indicator of this increasing weakness is the fact that the size of the United States Army in which I proudly served as a combat arms officer has shrunk to its smallest level since 1940, as the chances of World War Three with two allied nuclear superpowers has never been higher.

Here is a graphic showing the results of a recent poll which asked how many Americans would be willing to fight and die for their country and how many would prefer to “surrender and survive.”

The percentage of fighting age Americans aged 18-29 preferring to surrender rather than fight to defend the country is greater than any other demographic polled which is not surprising given all of the anti-American woke Marxist propaganda which they have been indoctrinated with over the past 7-8 years. No wonder US military recruitment is at a historic low. Better red then dead I guess. Seriously, US leaders need to begin rebuilding America’s military most importantly our increasingly obsolescent and badly undersized strategic nuclear deterrent if we are to deter enemy nuclear aggression against us and ensure America survives what is shaping up to be the most perilous decade in American history.

As Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has championed we need to abandon America’s pursuit of endless and unnecessary wars which threaten America’s national suicide and pursue a strategy which focuses on strategic and homeland defense against existential threats such as nuclear, super EMP, cyber attack and an ongoing invasion by several millions of illegal immigrants which the Biden regime is welcoming in.

Recent Media Interviews

August 18th—Interview with Jonathan Hollerman on EMP Task Force Channel to discuss the EMP threat from the Sino-Russian alliance and the likely outcome of the war in Ukraine.

August 22nd—Interview with Carlos Carrillo on the Living Hope Esparanza Podcast discussing the chances of whether the war in Ukraine will escalate to World War III with Russia. Here is a link to the interview.

August 25th—Interview with former Polish Sejm Deputy Mateusz Piskorski to discuss the war in Ukraine and how to end it before it escalates to a full-scale war between Russia and NATO.

August 26th—Interview with Jon Twitchell on the Republic Broadcasting Network discussing the death of Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and the latest developments in the war in Ukraine. Here is a link to the interview.

September 8th—Studio Interview on Jason Preston’s “We Are the People podcast focusing on the threat from Communist China and how to win America’s Cold War with them. Here is the link to the interview.

September 14th—Two-hour long presentation to the Utah Citizens for the Constitution and Cache County Conservatives on the history and future of US Foreign & National Security Policy

September 16th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss my new China-Taiwan Compromise Peace Plan. Here is the link to the interview.

September 27th—Appearance on the Committee on the Present Danger-China webinar “Memo to the Senate: Stop the Marxist Take-down of Our Military” discussing the importance of opposing woke cultural Marxist indoctrination of the U.S. Military and opposing the nominations of US military leaders who support it. Here is a link to the interview.

September 28th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss a number of important topics including the recent Iranian launch of a satellite in orbit at the optimum altitude for a super EMP attack that could destroy the US in minutes. Here is the link to the interview.

October 5th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss Putin’s recent threats to conduct an above-ground nuclear test in violation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and nuke the US if it attacks Russia directly. Here is the link.

Upcoming Interviews

October 9th—Interview with Nima Rostami Alkhorshid host of the Dialogue Works show to discuss the prospects for peace in Ukraine and Israel and avoiding a larger and more destructive war.

October 10th—Interview with Jon Twitchell on his Talk with Jon show to discuss the rising threat of the war in Ukraine and the coming war in Taiwan could escalate to World War Three with Russia and/or China.

October 11th-Interview with Greg Allison on his podcast to discuss the prospects for escalation up to and including US military intervention in the Israel-Hamas War, whether we could win a tactical or strategic nuclear war with Russia or China and how we can use diplomatic negotiation to ensure America’s national survival.

October 12th-Interview with Chayse Leavitt on his “We Are Here” podcast to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists.

October 30th-Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Farming podcast to discuss the increasing threat of World War Three in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

November 2nd—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss the chances that the Israel-Hamas War will escalate to a direct war with Iran including major Iranian cyberattacks on US critical infrastructure.

November 3rd—I will be giving a presentation to the Highland Meeting Group about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

November 9th—Interview on “Are You Ready?” podcast discussing the chances that the war in Israel could escalate to a regional Middle Eastern War or even World War III.

November 15th—Interview with Jon Twitchell on his Talk with Jon show to discuss the chances that the Israel-Hamas War could escalate to war with Iran potentially involving the U.S.

© David T. Pyne 2023

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. He recently co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “A Nuclear Posture Review for Advanced Technology Weapons” will be published in spring 2024. He also serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.