In Advance of Biden Visit, US Offers 'Unprecedented' Military Assistance to Israel
JERUSALEM, Israel – U.S. President Joe Biden plans to visit Israel on Wednesday. It's part of the high-stakes brinksmanship between Israel, the U.S., and Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained one of the main reasons for the president's visit, saying, "President Biden will underscore our crystal-clear message to any actor, state or non-state, trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack Israel. Don't. To that end, he's deployed two aircraft carrier groups and other military assets to the region.”
According to the Pentagon, about 2,000 U.S. troops may be deployed to support Israel in intelligence and medical roles, "should Israel launch a ground incursion into Gaza."
In response, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian warned of a preemptive attack if Israel begins a ground invasion of Gaza, and he said time is running out.
"If the limited and extremely tight windows of opportunity available to the United Nations and political actors are not used over the coming hours, opening new fronts against the Zionist regime is inevitable," he stated.
“So, there’s the threat of the border heating up even further," Israeli security expert Ari Sacher explained, and added he was "speaking to a friend of mine who was unable to come to work today because she was up until 6 o’clock in the morning. She lives in the north next to an artillery battery and she was up till 6 o’clock with regular artillery fire into Lebanon. Things are hot and getting hotter.”
Sacher believes Hezbollah presents a much more formidable military challenge than Hamas, and he used a baseball analogy to describe it.
“Hamas is the equivalent to Triple-A ball, the Toledo Mud Hens," he said. "They’re a good team. But Hezbollah is the Boston Red Sox. They’re major league. They’re near peer, I would call them.”
Meanwhile, Hamas released footage of a French-Israeli woman hostage, an act the Israeli military called "psychological terror." The total number of hostages is now at least 199.
Israel's Foreign Ministry released its own footage from an autopsy of Israelis burned to death by Hamas.
Dr. Chen Kugel, a forensic expert, choked up when describing the horror of the examination. "I'm 31 years a forensic pathologist," he said. "I'm used to seeing dead people. But I never saw people that are conjoined together while they are burned, trying to hug each other. I, I'm sorry."
The Israel Defense Forces told CBN News Hezbollah is slowly escalating the situation on the northern border. On the Gaza border in the south, Special Ops Sgt.-Major Doron Keidar, fresh from the front lines, told us the military is ready.
“What I can tell you is that what this (brutality) has done, it has united us – all of us, across the board, whatever our political agendas were before this broke out, coming together – the Air Force, the Ground Forces, the Navy. Everybody is coming, and we’re ready to do our part to defend our country and stand shoulder to shoulder," Keidar pledged.
