This is The Prophecy. The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For The Prophecy sees without the limits of time. For The Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be.
“The problem here comes from many subtle faults,” explained Skyes after the study was published.
He adds: “We now see there is earthquake activity on them. Each one is small, but when you add them up, they are probably more dangerous than we thought.”
10-month-old Kfir Bibas is one of the remaining hostages being held in GazaCredit: ReutersRelatives and supporters of Israeli captives protesting for their release on April 12Credit: AFPIsraelis at an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv, on April 20Credit: AFPIsraelis react to calls for the immediate release of hostages at a protest on April 18Credit: Reuters
A source is reported to have told the Daily Mail: “[Intelligence] is much easier to access than before October 7 when we had limited access to Gaza and we didn’t have a lot of possibilities of sources.
“The situation is completely different because we are there.”
Last week, Hamas and Israel were considering a new US-backed ceasefire deal under which 40 hostages, including women, children, elderly men, and others in poor health, would be set free.
The deal would also see hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons.
A Hamas official reported that the group cannot commit to releasing 40 hostages who match those criteria for release, but it can commit to returning 40 hostages.
Although it is unclear how many hostages remain alive, other intelligence sources estimate the number to be around 100.
It is also thought that the majority of the hostages who remain alive are male IDF soldiers, or men of military reserve age.
Illustrative: A picture taken from the southern Lebanese village of Alma al-Shaab shows smoke rising from an Israeli military outpost after a rocket attack by Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, on April 6, 2024. (Kawnat Haju/AFP)
At least three members of the Hezbollah terror group were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Saturday, as skirmishes on the border continued.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had carried out strikes on Hezbollah operatives in Ayta ash-Shab and Kfar Kila in the morning hours, after they were spotted entering sites belonging to the terror group.
Later in the day, the IDF said reservists of the Etzioni Brigade spotted several more Hezbollah operatives at one of the group’s sites in Jebbayn before fighter jets struck the building. Hezbollah announced that three of its members were killed in the strike in Jebbayn.
Their deaths brought the terror group’s toll amid the war in the Gaza Strip to 285.
Since October 8, Hezbollah has attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a daily basis with rockets, drones, anti-tank missiles and other means, saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Sirens sounded in northern Israel throughout Saturday, warning of rocket attacks and possible drone infiltrations, some of which were later deemed to be false alarms.
At least one projectile fired from Lebanon hit a home in the largely evacuated town of Metula. There were no reports of injuries.
The terror group claimed responsibility for at least nine separate attacks Saturday.
Israel has threatened to go to war to force Hezbollah away from the border if it does not retreat and continues to threaten northern communities, from where some 70,000 people were evacuated to avoid the fighting.
So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in eight civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 10 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 285 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 54 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 60 civilians have been killed.
Israel-Iran War Live Updates: The Israelis attacked Iran early Friday but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation -which seems to appear as a gauge towards averting region-wide war. The limited scale of the attack and Iran’s muted response both appeared to signal a successful effort by diplomats who have been working round the clock to avert all-out war since an Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel last Saturday. Earlier, Iran’s Fars news agency reported an explosion at an airport in the city of Isafahan, but the cause was not immediately clear. Isfahan province is home to several Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Natanz uranium enrichment center. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country reserved the right to protect itself after Iran’s unprecedented attack, and that it alone would decide how to do so. Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel over the weekend in an attack that caused little damage after most of the projectiles were intercepted. The Israeli military has vowed to respond, prompting a diplomatic flurry aimed at calming the Middle East. Israel’s allies in Washington and Brussels have pledged to ramp up sanctions against Iran, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock became the first Western envoys to visit Israel since the attack.
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following the IRGC attack on Israel
Jake Wallis Simons
Sat, April 20, 2024 at 11:47 AM MDT·3 min read
What if one of the missiles streaking from Iran towards Israel had been carrying a nuclear payload? That question has been asked by many in the defence establishment this week. For all the alarm about rockets and drones, the atomic threat is true danger.
Jerusalem’s impressive retaliatory strike whispered a warning about its capabilities while offering a generous exit from escalation, and kept the international community happy. After so many allies had come to its defence, Israel owed them cooperation. But in many ways, it is more vulnerable than it was before.
Right now, war with Iran would suit nobody. Israel has Hamas to destroy and hostages to release, not to mention Hezbollah in the north. But international pressure not to “escalate” meant that Friday’s operation was about fear rather than pain. Fanaticism has a way of dulling fear.
The penalty for a massive aerial barrage, which cost Israel and its allies $1 billion to thwart, is now clear: a pinpoint strike on an airfield in Isfahan. In other words, the Iranians have succeeded in creating a world in which direct attacks on the Jewish state are no longer off the table.
In every dimension of the conflict, Tehran has long been advancing on Israel in increments. This applies to its nuclear progress as much as conventional warfare. In January, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors visited Fordow, an Iranian nuclear site on the fringes of the Great Salt Desert. They were appalled by what they found. It had mothballed its enrichment processes in 2015, yet now it had been fitted with new equipment and was on track to double its output, including highly enriched uranium.
That same month, Iran’s former foreign minister said: “We have (crossed) all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology… Here’s an example. Imagine what a car needs. It needs a chassis, an engine, a steering wheel, a gearbox. You’re asking if we’ve made the gearbox, I say yes. Have we made the engine? Yes.” It just needs to be put together.
Tehran’s “breakout time” to achieve enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb is close to zero. It would be a matter of months before the fissile material was deployable on a warhead.
With polls predicting a second Trump presidency, and the return of the man who imposed “maximum pressure” on Iran, Tehran may decide to go nuclear before November, reshaping the power balance of the Middle East before he takes office.
Appeasement has clearly failed. For years, the Israeli side has been calling on the Americans to adopt a four-part strategy of nuclear containment: robust sanctions, pressure from the UN and regional deterrents from a strengthened alliance with Gulf states and other moderate Arab countries and, crucially, a credible military threat.
In extremis, the Jewish state could destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities alone, probably by dropping several bunker buster bombs in succession to reach the complexes deep underground. But the operation really needs American might, including heavy bombers and Massive Ordnance Air Blast bombs.
Containing the fallout, both across the region and vis-à-vis Russia and China, would also require American leadership. God knows the White House owes Jerusalem this much. But years of appeasement mean that the day is coming when Israel must strike, with or without Uncle Sam.
House Speaker Mike Johnson took an extraordinary political risk to defy the anti-interventionist wing of his party and push through the foreign aid package.Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
House Approves $95 Billion Aid Bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
After months of delay at the hands of a bloc of ultraconservative Republicans, the package drew overwhelming bipartisan support, reflecting broad consensus.
April 20, 2024Updated 4:22 p.m. ET
The House voted resoundingly on Saturday to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line to advance the long-stalled aid package by marshaling support from mainstream Republicans and Democrats.
In four back-to-back votes, overwhelming bipartisan coalitions of lawmakers approved fresh rounds of funding for the three U.S. allies, as well as another bill meant to sweeten the deal for conservatives that could result in a nationwide ban of TikTok.
The scene on the House floor reflected both the broad support in Congress for continuing to help the Ukrainian military beat back Russia, and the extraordinary political risk taken by Mr. Johnson to defy the anti-interventionist wing of his party who had sought to thwart the measure. Minutes before the vote on assistance for Kyiv, Democrats began to wave small Ukrainian flags on the House floor, as hard-right Republicans jeered.
The legislation includes $60 billion for Kyiv; $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza; and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. It would direct the president to seek repayment from the Ukrainian government of $10 billion in economic assistance, a concept supported by former President Donald J. Trump, who had pushed for any aid to Kyiv to be in the form of a loan. But it also would allow the president to forgive those loans starting in 2026.
It also contained a measure to help pave the way to selling off frozen Russian sovereign assets to help fund the Ukrainian war effort, and a new round of sanctions on Iran. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday and send it to President Biden’s desk, capping its tortured journey through Congress.
“Our adversaries are working together to undermine our Western values and demean our democracy,” Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Saturday as the House debated the measure. “We cannot be afraid at this moment. We have to do what’s right. Evil is on the march. History is calling and now is the time to act.”
“History will judge us by our actions here today,” he continued. “As we deliberate on this vote, you have to ask yourself this question: ‘Am I Chamberlain or Churchill?’”
The vote was 311 to 112 in favor of the aid to Ukraine, with a majority of Republicans — 112 — voting against it and one, Representative Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, voting “present.” The House approved assistance to Israel 366 to 58; and to Taiwan 385 to 34, with Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, voting “present.” The bill to impose sanctions on Iran and require the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner or ban the app in the United States passed 360 to 58.
“Today, members of both parties in the House voted to advance our national security interests and send a clear message about the power of American leadership on the world stage,” Mr. Biden said. “At this critical inflection point, they came together to answer history’s call, passing urgently needed national security legislation that I have fought for months to secure.”
Minutes after the vote, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine thanked lawmakers, singling out Mr. Johnson by name “for the decision that keeps history on the right track.”
“Democracy and freedom will always have global significance and will never fail as long as America helps to protect it,” he wrote on social media. “The vital U.S. aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger.”
Outside the Capitol, a jubilant crowd waved Ukrainian flags and chanted, “Thank you U.S.A.” as exiting lawmakers gave them a thumbs-up and waved smaller flags of their own.
For months, it had been uncertain whether Congress would approve new funding for Ukraine, even as momentum shifted in Moscow’s favor. That prompted a wave of anxiety in Kyiv and in Europethat the United States, the single biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine, would turn its back on the young democracy.
And it raised questions about whether the political turmoil that has roiled the United States had effectively destroyed what has long been a strong bipartisan consensus in favor of projecting American values around the world. The last time the Congress approved a major tranche of funding to Ukraine was in 2022, before Republicans took control of the House.
With an “America First” sentiment gripping the party’s voter base, led by Mr. Trump, Republicans dug in last year against another aid package for Kyiv, saying the matter should not even be considered unless Mr. Biden agreed to stringent anti-immigration measures. When Senate Democrats agreed earlier this year to legislationthat paired the aid with stiffer border enforcement provisions, Mr. Trump denounced it and Republicans rejected it out of hand.
But after the Senate passed its own $95 billion emergency aid legislation for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan without any immigration measures, Mr. Johnson began — first privately, then loudly — telling allies that he would ensure the U.S. would send aid to Kyiv.
In the end, even in the face of an ouster threat from ultraconservative members, he circumvented the hard-line contingent of lawmakers that once was his political home and relied on Democrats to push the measure through. It was a remarkable turnabout for a right-wing lawmaker who voted repeatedly against aid to Ukraine as a rank-and-file member, and as recently as a couple of months ago declared he would never allow the matter to come to a vote until his party’s border demands were met.
In the days leading up to the vote, Mr. Johnson began forcefully making the case that it was Congress’s role to help Ukraine fend off the advances of an authoritarian. Warning that Russian forces could march through the Baltics and Poland if Ukraine falls, Mr. Johnson said he had made the decision to advance aid to Kyiv because he “would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys.”
“I think this is an important moment and important opportunity to make that decision,” Mr. Johnson told reporters at the Capitol after the votes. “I think we did our work here and I think history will judge it well.”
Mr. Johnson structured the measures, which were sent to the Senate as one bill, to capture different coalitions of support without allowing opposition to any one element to defeat the whole thing.
“I’m going to allow an opportunity for every single member of the House to vote their conscience and their will,” he had said.
In a nod to right-wing demands, Mr. Johnson allowed a vote just before the foreign aid bills on a stringent border enforcement measure, but it was defeated after failing to reach the two-thirds majority needed for passage. And the speaker refused to link the immigration bill to the foreign aid package, knowing that would effectively kill the spending plan.
His decision to advance the package infuriated the ultraconservatives in his conference who accused Mr. Johnson of reneging on his promise not to allow a vote on foreign aid without first securing sweeping policy concessions on the southern border. It prompted two Republicans, Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona to join a bid by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to oust Mr. Johnson from the top job.
Ms. Greene claimed the Ukraine aid bill supported “a business model built on blood and murder and war in foreign countries.”
“We should be funding to build up our weapons and ammunition, not to send it over to foreign countries,” she said before her proposal to zero out the money for Kyiv failed on a vote of 351 to 71.
Much of the funding for Ukraine is earmarked to replenish U.S. stockpiles after shipping supplies to Kyiv.
Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Congress has appropriated $113 billion in funding to support Ukraine’s war effort. $75 billion was directly allocated to the country for humanitarian, financial and military support, and another $38 billion in security assistance-related funding was spent largely in the United States, according to the Institute for Study of War, a Washington-based research group.
Hard-right Republican opposition to the legislation — both on the House floor and in the critical Rules panel — forced Mr. Johnson to rely on Democrats to push the legislation across the finish line.
“If Ukraine does not receive this support that it requires to defeat Russia’s outrageous assault on its sovereign territory, the legacy of this Congress will be the appeasement of a dictator, the destruction of an allied nation and a fractured Europe,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “Gone will be our credibility, in the eyes of our allies and of our adversaries. And gone will be the America that promised to stand up for freedom, democracy, and human rights, wherever they are threatened or wherever they are under attack.”
Thirty-seven liberal Democrats opposed the $26 billion aid package for Israel because the legislation placed no conditions on how Israel could use American funding, amid scores of civilian casualties and an imminent famine in Gaza. That showed a notable dent in the longstanding ironclad bipartisan backing for Israel in Congress, but was a relatively small bloc of opposition given that left-wing lawmakers had pressed for a large “no” vote on the bill to send a message to Mr. Biden about the depth of opposition within his political coalition to his backing for Israel’s tactics in the war.
“Sending more weapons to the Netanyahu government will make the U.S. even more responsible for atrocities and the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza which is now in a season of famine,” said Representative Jonathan L. Jackson, Democrat of Illinois.
Carl Hulse, Annie Karni, and Kayla Guo contributed reporting from Washington and Marc Santora from Kyiv.
Kathleen Magramo, Sana Noor Haq, Christian Edwards, Aditi Sangal, Elise Hammond, Amir Vera, Tori B. Powell and Maureen Chowdhury, Adam Renton and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN
An Iranian official said air defenses intercepted three drones and that there were no reports of a missile attack. Multiple state-aligned news agencies reported that sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program were “completely secure.”
Israel had for days weighed its response to Iran’s unprecedented weekend strikes, most of which were intercepted. Iran launched the attack in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria earlier this month.
The US was given advance notification Thursday of an intended Israeli strike in the coming days, but did not endorse the response, the US official said.
The attack came hours after Iran’s foreign minister told CNN that if Israel takes any further military action against Iran, its response would be “immediate and at a maximum level.”
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