The death toll has already passed 500 between Israel and Palestine, with an unknown number of other people either missing or having been taken hostage by the Hamas terrorists. Many young women and girls are among the missing, suggesting that the terrorists are attempting to use them as human shields against Israeli retaliatory strikes. But this morning, a new wrinkle developed in the ongoing war. Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon. Rather than quickly moving toward any sort of ceasefire, the war appears to be expanding. And at the bottom of all of this, Iran is clearly either pulling the strings or at least providing a tacit endorsement of the attacks. (Reuters)

Israel and Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah exchanged artillery and rocket fire on Sunday following the deadliest attack in years by Palestinian gunmen on Israel.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in either Lebanon or Israel from Sunday’s exchanges of fire.

On Saturday, a multi-pronged attack by Palestinian gunmen on Israeli towns left at least 250 Israelis dead, with more than 300 Palestinians killed in Israel’s retaliatory bombardment.

If you missed John’s update on the situation last night, be sure to check it out. He touched on the embarrassing initial response from the Biden administration urging Israel to “refrain from retaliation.” Now, less than 24 hours later, Israel is fighting a war on two fronts while grandmothers and children are being held hostage by the terrorists. Hezbollah isn’t even trying to hide their involvement. They’ve already released a statement taking credit for the missile attacks into Northern Israel.

Do any of our Democrats honestly believe that “restraint” and talking would quickly settle this situation? We should also consider the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas may technically be different entities, but they have one major thing in common. They are heavily funded by Iran and frequently take their directions from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the central terrorist power force in Iran. There has obviously been tension around Israel for most of the modern era, but today, Iran is pulling the strings in a major way.

The fault for this war lies with the attacking terrorists, of course. But we would be negligent if we failed to point out that there was a major policy shift in the United States when Joe Biden took office. He immediately began pumping money into Palestine despite being warned that some of that funding would go to the terrorists. Simultaneously, he began begging Iran to come back to Obama’s nuclear deal which had been shut down by Donald Trump. Iran ignored us, of course, accepting all the cash we offered while continuing work on their nuclear program.

What do all of these factors have in common? Such things are always murky, but it’s not difficult to believe that the Mullahs in Iran felt emboldened by Biden’s perceived weakness and conciliatory attitude. That confidence was no doubt shared within the IRGC, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they felt like the time was ripe for a fresh attack on Israel via their surrogates in Hamas and Hezbollah. And the Biden administration initially signaled a meek stance in response with the quickly-deleted tweet I mentioned above. Again, this does not mean that the Biden administration caused the current war. But weakness in the West fuels confidence and aggression among the world’s terrorist organizations. And we’re currently watching that play out in Israel.