(Isaiah 11:14) “They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west; Together they will plunder the sons of the east; They will possess Edom and Moab, And the sons of Ammon will be subject to them.”
On Monday of thie week in a phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with President Joe Biden the Israeli President re-enforced his commitment to eliminate Hamas and that the only way to achieve this goal would be to initiate a Rafah incursion by the IDF.
The Israeli Prime Minster said there was “no debate over the need to eliminate Hamas.” Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to highlight common beliefs and downplay disagreements with the United States, while reiterating his insistence on an IDF ground operation into the town of Rafah.
This past Tuesday speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee he stated, ““We have a debate with the Americans over the need to enter Rafah, not over the need to eliminate Hamas, but the need to enter Rafah.” While Biden is demanding a plan from the Israeli government as to how they plan to handle the civilian presence in Rafah he has appeared to rule out any large Israeli operation in Rafah.
PM Netanyahu also said to Joe Biden “We have a debate that I will put on the table, and we all know it,” Netanyahu said, addressing the growing public rift. “We see no way to eliminate Hamas militarily without destroying these remaining battalions.”
According to statements by Netanyahu and Israel Defence Forces, four of the six remaining intact Hamas battalions are located in Rafah, which is located in southern Gaza, near the border with Egypt. Prime Minister Netanyahu continued to say to make things crystal clear to President Joe Biden that “we are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion.”
The Israeli Prime Minister explained his rationale for the IDF’s large-scale incursion into the city, arguing ; “We cannot go around it; neither can we say, ‘We will destroy 80% of Hamas and leave 20%,’ because from that 20%, they will reorganize and take over the Strip again and, of course, constitute a new threat to Israel.”
He also added; “Therefore, we are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas. This requires the elimination of the remaining battalions in Rafah and, of course the 1.5 battalions in the camps in the centre of the Gaza Strip, that eliminating Hamas is a necessary condition to win the war.”
The Israeli Prime Minister also insisted that he and his cabinet would strongly reject the international pressure to broker a cease-fire. He stated; “We are, of course, under growing international pressure, which we are rejecting in order to achieve the goals of the war,” he said.
He also stressed; “We are in a dual campaign, a military campaign and a diplomatic campaign. Of course, they are inter-connected; the diplomatic fight gives us the time and the resources to reach the full results of the war.”
In Isaiah Chapter 11:14 we see Israel, under their Commander in Chief the Messiah our Lord Jesus after He has returned, giving Israel complete possession of Gaza, having eliminated all opposition, plundering the Arab nations whose armies dared to attack Israel, and taking possession over the militant Arabs in Southern, Central and Northern Jordan.
In that day Israel will possess all of the land bequeathed to them by God from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates River (Genesis 15:17-19) (Obadiah 1:17). Israel will possess the gates of their enemies (Genesis 22:17). We are also told in God’s Word that when the Messiah returns to fight the armies besieging Jerusalem that; “Judah will also fight at Jerusalem” (Zechariah 14:14).
Of course the tribe of Judah will be prominent in that battle because the Commander in Chief is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and when He roars and His descendants shout the victory cry, the jungle of this world will be shaken to its very core! At present the war continues between Israel and Hamas, and Gaza is not as yet under Israeli control.
We also need to remember that in Gaza when the Philistines ruled they were under the control of a very powerful principality in the unseen spiritual realm in the atmosphere just above the circumference of the earth, the domain of Satan (Job 1:7; 2:2) (Ephesians 2:2). This principality is now over the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
We do know that the land of Israel will be ‘carved up’ by the international community, but that God will intervene in the end and bring the armies of those Gentile nations that have besieged Israel into the valley of His judgement and drawing them into the winepress of His wrath.
In that day, Israel will become the head and not the tail of the nations that have survived the Messiah’s Second Coming (Joel 3:1-3, 12-16) (Isaiah 63:1-6) (Revelation 14:17-20; 19:11-21). As for the principality over Gaza its power will be utterly broken!
Let Biden and the leaders of the nations continue to curtail Israel’s offensive into Rafah they will not succeed in the end as Israel will ultimately possess every part of their Land including Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Jordan and the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and most of Syria up to the Euphrates River.
As for Hezbollah and their leaders they will also be cut down at the command of Israel’s Commander in Chief the Messiah our Lord Jesus (Psalm 29:5). Whether Israel will go into Rafah remains to be seen and they also still have to face Hezbollah from the North, and possibly have to make a first strike on the military infrastructure of the Ayatollah Iranian Regime which we see described in Daniel Chapter 10:12-21.
Even though God has still some spiritual refining to accomplish with His wife Israel to bring them as a nation back to the Messiah, it is very clear in God’s Word that He will still fight for Israel because of his Covenant made with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob and their descendants the people of Israel.
As we read in the prophet Isaiah; “For this is what the LORD has said to me: “Like a lion roaring or a young lion over its prey, and though a band of shepherds is called out against it, it is not terrified by their shouting or subdued by their clamour, so the LORD of Hosts will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and its heights. Like birds hovering overhead, so the LORD of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will shield it and deliver it; He will pass over it and preserve it” (Isaiah 31:4-5).
