Iran's Growing Influence
March 8, 2007
Today's Jerusalem Dateline includes two reports of Iran's growing influence, especially in the Gaza Strip. First is an excerpt from an interview CBN News did with Yuval Steinitz, the former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The second is a summary of a briefing General Yoav Galant, the commanding general of Israel's Southern Front, from a closed briefing to diplomats and journalists on Wednesday.
Both men discussed the growing and alarming influence of Iran not only in the Gaza Strip but throughout the Middle East as well. To watch Stenitz, click on the camera icon and to find out more about Gallant, read on.
Few people know more about what's going on in the Gaza Strip than Galant, the former head of Israel's naval commandos, who also served as military advisor to Ariel Sharon. He documented the exponential rise in terror attacks since August 2005, when Israel evicted thousands of Jews from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians took over.
The numbers in the past year and a half are revealing:
2053 rocket attacks
295 IDEs (Improved Device Explosives)
143 anti-tank rockets fired
260 shootings
His analysis of the growing military strength of Hamas and the increased influence of Iran is alarming. For example, he says Hamas, not Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is the dominant Palestinian power within the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has now divided up the Gaza Strip into four military commands: the Southern, Central, Gaza (city), and the Northern brigades. Within each of those brigades are four battalions; each battalion has three companies; each company has three platoons and each platoon is made up of five units. Those units include observation, sniping, infantry, explosives, and anti-tank. So Hamas is developing a highly structured and sophisticated military force within the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, Gallant says Palestinian terrorists are leaving the Gaza Strip via Egypt and heading to Iran and other parts of the Middle East, like Syria and Lebanon, for training. This allows Palestinian terrorists to meet with other jihadist organizations.
The impact of this development, he believes, might be felt around the world. In a recent interview, the head of Israel's Shin Bet (General Security Agency) said this training is ". ..a strategic danger more than all the weapons smuggled into Gaza."
Another ominous development is that Iranian expertise in explosives is also having an impact not in the Gaza Strip, but Iraq and Lebanon, a potentially major development within the Middle East. These Middle Eastern terror groups are working toward the same goals, defeating Israel and getting the U.S. out of Iraq.
Galant also noted that Hamas, just like Hezbollah in Lebanon, is becoming an Iranian proxy. More startling however is his assessment that the al-Aksa Mratyrs Brigade, a group affiliated with Abbas's Fatah party is already an Iranian organization just like Islamic Jihad.
Sobering stuff.
The hope in August 2005, when Israel evicted thousands of Jews, was that the "disengagement" would bring peace. Instead, it seems to have fostered a highly motivated terror group with connections that are now spreading to the global jihad network.
It should be motivation to pray for the light of the Gospel to penetrate the enveloping darkness in the Middle East and to "Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem."
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