GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 226

Iranian Leaders Feared Dead

Iranian President’s Helicopter Crashes

The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi could have died in a helicopter crash as we see in an article from The Jerusalem Post:

The Islamic regime in Iran expressed concern for the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian after the helicopter they were traveling in suffered a "hard landing" on Sunday afternoon.

Details about the incident remained unclear as of Sunday afternoon, although reports indicated the accident involved the president's helicopter and foggy weather. As night fell, the searches became even more difficult. According to the Iranian IRNA news agency, the helicopter crashed in a forest area between the villages of PirDavood and Uzi in northwestern Iran.

More details about the incident was shared:

According to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, emergency services were conducting searches to try and find the president's helicopter, but the foggy weather and huge, 70-meter tall boulders in the area were complicating search efforts. Over 40 rescue teams were operating in the area as part of search efforts.

The reformist Ensaf News site cited an informed source as saying that the crash was "serious" and that there was a "high probability" of injuries in the accident.

According to the report, more than Raisi was in that helicopter:

Amir-Abdollahian and Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist in East Azerbaijan and the Imam of Friday Prayer in Tabriz, were reportedly in the helicopter with Raisi.

Raisi’s helicopter was one of three. The other two landed safely. To date, the cause of the accident nor the extent of casualties are not known. Iran’s leader sees no reason for panic:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to pray for Raisi's health on Sunday evening, saying "If the people of Iran do not worry, there will be no disruption in the work of the country."

No one knows how this will affect the war against Israel at this point, but it could. My opinion is that it very well could raise the level of resolve to exterminate Israel to honor a man referred to as the “butcher of Tehran” in light of his involvement in the mass executions of Iranian political prisoners in the 1980s.

US Could See An October 7th

In a report from The Times Of Israel a US representative visiting Israel thinks America could see an attack like Hamas unleashed on October 7th:

Slamming US President Joe Biden’s decision to pause a shipment of thousands of bombs, Representative Elise Stefanik on Sunday warned that unless Israel is supplied with the weapons necessary to “achieve total victory,” America could face its own October 7.

Addressing lawmakers in Jerusalem during a session of the Knesset Caucus for Jewish and pro-Israel Students on Campuses around the World, the senior House Republican from New York declared that “there is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel — aid that was duly passed by the Congress — or to ease sanctions on Iran, paying a $6 billion ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, or to dither and hide while our friends fight for their lives.”

Stefanik was referring to the administration not sending weapons that the congress approved:

Seeking to discourage Israel from launching its planned offensive against Hamas in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah, the Biden administration this month put on hold a weapons shipment of 3,500 bombs — some as large as 2,000 pounds — over concerns about their use in populated areas. Biden later threatened to withhold further arms if Israel moves into “population centers” in Rafah.

The House passed a bill to force the transfer, though. Interestingly, Senator Chuck Schumer, himself a Jew will stand in its way:

The move was denounced by many American supporters of Israel, with outraged Republicans — who accused Biden of abandoning the closest US ally in the Middle East — pushing a bill through the Republican-controlled House to force the weapons transfer that also received some Democratic votes.

The White House has said Biden would veto the bill if it passes Congress, and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he doesn’t plan to allow a vote on it. Despite the pause, billions of dollars worth of US weaponry remain in the pipeline for Israel.

Stefanik noted that she supported Israel at every turn:

Commenting on the recently passed multi-billion dollar aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Stefanik said that she was “proud to have sponsored or backed every measure to aid Israel that has come before the United States Congress.”

Defending American values means “crushing antisemitism at home and supplying the State of Israel with what it needs, when it needs it, without conditions to achieve total victory in the face of evil,” she maintained.

She told those in attendance that the war against Hamas after what they did on October 7th had to happen:

When they chose rape, the torture of civilians, and the mutilation of infants as weapons of terrorism, they left no alternative to this just war,” Stefanik argued.

“When the genocidal zealots running Iran lobbed missiles at this very city, they removed any doubt as to their hideous intentions. Chants of ‘Death to America’ are not hollow slogans. They are a promise that what happened here on October seventh could happen in the United States unless Hamas and its jihadist accomplices are eliminated.”

The congresswoman said that America needs to aggressively fight antisemitism and terrorism at home, too:

“When the enemy is inside the gates of the United Nations, America must be the one to call it by its name and destroy it. President Trump understood this, and B’ezrat Hashem, we will return to that strategy soon,” she said, using a Hebrew phrase meaning “God willing.”

“We must not let the extremism in so-called elite corners conceal the deep abiding love for Israel among the American people,” Stefanik said.

Stefanik is correct and we need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem so that we can see peace here in America as well. Afterall, Iran calls us the great Satan and that should tell you a lot.