GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 134

Netanyahu Is Defiant

“We Won’t Be Dictated To.”

In a prepared statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave anyone who will listen the one way hostage talks can move forward in a report from i24news.tv:

Hamas drops its "delusional" demands, productive hostage talks could begin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, stressing Israel would not agree to the terror group's current demands.

"I insist that Hamas should abandon its delusional demands - and when it does, we will be able to move forward," Netanyahu said in a statement live on TV.

"Those who want us to desist from the Rafah operation," the leader said in an apparent reference to the U.S. administration of President Joe Biden, "are telling us we should lose. We won't be dictated to."

In a separate article from The Times Of Israel we read of a response to a reporter’s question on the actual operation:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comments on the expected Israeli operation in Rafah in response to a question from The Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman on whether there had been plans to enter Gaza’s southernmost city at the beginning of the ground offensive and, if so, why had that step not been taken then.

“I won’t get into our plans,” the premier responds, adding that the large number of Palestinians taking refuge in Gaza won’t ultimately be a hindrance. He says the IDF’s capacity to enter Rafah militarily and to evacuate the [civilian] population has “been proved realistic” by its campaign in Gaza thus far.

“The IDF can reach everywhere in the Gaza Strip, including Rafah,” he says.

Netanyahu adds that going into Rafah will happen with or without a hostage deal:

He acknowledges international pressure not to operate in Rafah. But he asks how the international community can expect Israel “to leave a quarter of Hamas’s [organized fighting] force intact, in a defined territory. We won’t allow that.”

He says everyone wants to reach another hostage deal. “I also want it,” he says, and it’ll be “very good” if this can be achieved. But he reiterates that a new hostage deal with Hamas “does not appear very close” given the terror group’s demands.

Yet “even if we achieve it, we will go into Rafah,” he stresses. “There is no alternative to total victory. And there is no way to achieve total victory without destroying those battalions in Rafah, and we will do so.”

The PM also assured the world that the evacuating the civilians will be done without problems.

Hostage Families Protest

In a protest at the home of the PM, hostage relatives had a message for the world as we read in an article from The Times Of Israel:

Shira Siegel, the daughter of 64-year-old Hamas captive Keith Siegel, is speaking to a crowd of protesters outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem.

“Today it is us, tomorrow it could be you… We are all hostage families,” she says.

Siegel’s mother, Aviva, was freed in November in a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.

There was smaller protest that could be heard:

A handful of pro-Netanyahu counter-protesters, consisting of a man with a megaphone, a couple of women and their children, can be heard in the background of Siegel’s speech from a nearby street.

It is obvious that such protests will continue as they should in a free society. Whether they move the needle on getting their loved ones back is yet to be seen. We pray that their desires become reality and all the hostages will be released.

Hamas Wants To Reach A Deal

For its part, Hamas says they are trying to reach a deal but it is Israel that is in the way as reported in an article from The Jerusalem Post:

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh blamed Israel for a lack of progress in achieving a ceasefire deal in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave's ruling terrorist group said in a Saturday statement on Telegram.

Haniyeh added that Hamas "has responded all the time in a positive spirit and high responsibility with the mediator brothers in order to stop the aggression against our people, end the unjust siege, and allow the flow of aid, shelter, and reconstruction.

Haniyeh says Hamas is willing to bend:

Haniyeh also claimed that "The movement has shown complete flexibility in dealing with these issues, but it is clear so far that the occupation continues to maneuver and procrastinate in the files. Which concerns our people, while his position revolves around the release of prisoners held by the resistance."

What does he mean by being “flexible?” Here is more from the same article:

Despite the claim that Hamas has been acting "flexibly" in negotiations, Haniyeh asserted that "The resistance will not accept anything less than a complete cessation of aggression, the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, the lifting of the unjust siege, the provision of safe and appropriate shelter for the displaced and displaced due to the crimes of the occupation, the return of the displaced, especially to the north of the Gaza Strip, an end to the barbaric starvation policy, and a commitment to reconstruction."

These negotiations are between a rock and hard place and won’t be resolved if Hamas and Israel refuse to give up what the other wants in return. Hamas wants to survive and Israel wants to exterminate them. I don’t see any room for a deal with those conditions.

More Prayer Keys

From time to time I give us prayer keys as we intercede for the war in Israel. Here are more of them:

  • God, thank You for the Sons of Zion in Israel's government, those who trust in You and Your Word, who joined Bibi in publicly rejecting this (two state) plan (Psa. 118:9; Jer. 17:5-8; Zech. 9:13).
  • Continue to use Netanyahu until it is Your time for him to step aside (Dan. 2:21; Jer. 27:5).
  • Send forth sons of Zion and sons of Issachar to be his advisors (1 Chr. 12:32; Prov. 19:20-21).
  • Strengthen him against personal attacks from both inside and outside of Israel (Psa. 17:7).
  • Abba, pour out Your comfort on all Israel, especially on those whose loved ones are being held hostage, or whose fate is as yet unknown (Psa. 23:4-6; Isa. 12:1; 61:1-3).
  • Thank You for Netanyahu and most other Israeli leaders absolutely rejecting Hamas' over-the-top demands in their current hostage exchange-for-ceasefire offer (2 Chr. 19:7; Prov. 21:1).
  • Use Hamas' demands to turn the mindset of the hostages' families and Israel's media so that their anger and frustration is focused at Hamas and not at Bibi and the government (Prov. 19:11a).
  • Thwart all spirits of division and rebellion from reappearing in Israel (Ex. 23:2; Isa. 11:13-14).
  • Abba, aid Israel's economy to prosper miraculously during the war (Gen. 12:2; 13:2; Deut. 8:18).
  • Let prophetic voices in America warn its political and church leaders that Biden's push to create a Palestinian State actually pushes the US deeper into Your valley of judgment by dividing Your land and expelling almost one million Israelis from their homes (Joel 3:1-2; cp. Isa. 66:4; Ezek. 36:1-5).
  • Erase this anti-biblical "two-state solution" deception from Israel's thinking and from the thinking of every born-again believer – and even from some nations as well (Psa. 10:4; 94:11; 139:23-24).
  • Strengthen Israel's resistant to this satanically-inspired plan that rewards the Palestinians for raping and massacring Jews and taking many as hostages (Job 18:5-6; Isa. 3:11; 65:13-14).
  • Lord, defend Your nation against the world's anti-biblical and anti-Semitic schemes (Psa. 124:1-8).
  • Silence foreign ministers, in particular America's Blinken, who are pressing hard on Israel to submit to their anti-God propositions – or in some cases – even demands (Isa. 8:9-10; 33:7).
  • Watch over Psalm 33:10-11, and bring the counsel and plans of the nations to nothing.
  • Let Israel finally see that it has no trustworthy "friends" among the nations and use this truth to turn many Israelis to look to and trust in You alone (Num. 23:9b; Psa. 80:3; 118:6-9).
  • Thank You for Your angelic hosts actively defending Israel today (Judg. 5:20; 2 Chr. 32:7-8).
  • Lord God, help Israel to finish this war victoriously and with its deterrence restored (Psa. 44:4-6)!
  • Do not let Israel's leaders accept any "ceasefire" which leaves Hamas "alive" (Ex. 15:6; Num. 10:9).
  • Let the war end when You deem it over and not when Biden or anyone else says so (Eccl. 3:1, 8).
  • We give You the glory for aiding the IDF to rapidly adapt their tactics in a type of urban warfare that is unknown in previous wars throughout history (Psa. 29:1-11).
  • And we pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psa. 122:6)