Free Republic

A rare glimpse into Hezbollah's underground tunnels was provided on Friday by Lebanese publication As-Safir, which is associated with the militant organization. The report praised Hezbollah's activities and painted it as a strong army ready for battle. While it is difficult to verify the claims in the article, it contained a rare discussion of the tunnels by Hezbollah members. The reporter wrote that in order to meet Hezbollah fighters near the Israeli border in southern Lebanon, he travelled from the city of Tyre and was required to stop at a house known to locals as a Hezbollah headquarters, where he...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State has taken control of 90 percent of a Palestinian refugee camp on the Damascus outskirts where 18,000 civilians have suffered years of bombing, army siege and militia control, a monitoring group said on Saturday. The hardline group's offensive in Yarmouk gives it a major presence in the capital. Islamic State, the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, is now only a few kilometers from President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power. The United Nations has said it is extremely concerned about the safety and protection of Syrians and Palestinians in the camp. Civilians trapped there have...

The number of new homes under construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank rose last year by 40 percent, the Peace Now anti-settlements watchdog said Monday. The Israeli group said the construction of 3,100 “residential units” began last year in West Bank settlements, while 4,485 tenders for construction there and in east Jerusalem settlement districts were launched in 2014 — “a record high for at least a decade”. Of the 3,100 units, 287 were in so-called wildcat settlements without official authorisation from Israeli authorities, Peace Now said. The international community draws no distinction between “legal” and “illegal” settlements, considering...

Israel and Hezbollah are at war. On top of everything else that is going on in the world, now we have a new war in the Middle East, and nobody is quite certain what is going to happen next. Israel has been preparing for this moment for more than 8 years. So has Hezbollah. According to some reports, Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of 50,000 rockets since the end of the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006. If all-out warfare does erupt, we could potentially see tens of thousands of missiles rain down into an area not too much larger than the...

More details have been released regarding Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's speech to the Arab League on Saturday revealing that Abbas has concocted a comprehensive plan to flatten Israel politically and bypass the need for bilateral negotiations to establish a Palestinian state. Abbas's plan includes approaching the UN Security Council with a draft resolution to establish the state in Judea and Samaria, over 1949 Armistice lines - as he has threatened to do before. However, the details of the plan include a specific "plan of attack" against Israel, as follows: 1. To turn to the UN Security Council with...

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s king and his people are bristling with anger over Israeli actions at a sacred site for Muslims in Jerusalem, threatening to turn a cold peace between Israel and Jordan into a deep freeze. The rising animosity between Jordan and Israel, whose governments are tethered by a peace treaty, could undermine U.S.-led efforts to fight Islamist extremists. It also threatens a multi-billion dollar natural gas deal that is important to both countries. Jordan took the extraordinary step this month of recalling its ambassador to Israel to protest police incursions, provocative visits by Israeli politicians and the treatment...

A perfect storm is brewing for Israel. After years of counterproductive concessions, if the Jews wish to preserve their sovereignty, what is required is ruthless resolve, not reticent restraint. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. – Winston Churchill, in first speech to the House of Commons as prime minister, May 13, 1940 A military defeat of Israel would mean the physical extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state... Nor does this reflect a...

CAIRO — The Arab League warned Sunday that Israel has reached a “red line” after fresh clashes in Jerusalem, urging international pressure to stop what it branded “violations” in the holy city. Clashes around the flashpoint Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque compound — the third holiest site in Islam and Judaism’s holiest — prompted Israel on Thursday to close the site for a day. The Temple Mount and adjacent neighborhoods have seen months of violence, with the mosque compound a rallying point for Palestinian resistance to perceived Jewish attempts to take control of it...

Israel is the country most hated by Turkish citizens, a Pew Research Center poll released last week found. Responders were asked whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of a selection of states (US, China, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Israel) and entities (such as the European Union and Nation). Israel was found the most disliked country of the offered options, with 86 percent of responders saying they have an unfavorable opinion of Israel and only 2 percent seeing Israel in a positive light...

The announcement by Sweden’s new prime minister that his government plans to extend recognition to a “Palestinian” state raises major questions in both international and United Nations law. Israelis are frequently asked: “Why is Israel opposed to recognizing a Palestinian state? Detach yourselves from the Palestinians like the French detached themselves from Algeria and the two states will live in peace with each other as was originally envisaged under the 1947 Partition Resolution...”

Psalms 83 represent the 10 nations against Israel during the Tribulation. Far too many people incorrectly identify the 10 kingdoms in Revelation 17 as the revised Roman empire; but if you study carefully an ancient map of the middle east, you will clearly see that all 10 of these nations surrounding Israel.