By Chika Abanobi

This week makes one year since fire-eating Hamas militants launched an overwhelming military attack on Israel, killing 1,139 people, raping young women and taking with them 251 hostages, many of whom are dead. The enormity and audacity of the unprovoked attack shocked the world.

Not surprisingly, Israel, known, over the years, for unforgiving military reprisals, launched a devastating counterattack against Hamas and its allies. It saw its defence forces routing the invading militants as well as bringing, in the past one year, massive destruction of lives and physical infrastructures never seen before. The widening regional conflict that the development brought has seen states like Iran, the United States, Britain, Lebanon, etc and non-state actors like Hezbollah and Houthis sucked into its miasma. 

But suffice it to say that since the war began, names of familiar Biblical places have continued to echo and re-echo in the news. They include Israel, Gaza, West Bank (Judea and Samaria), Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nazareth, Caesaria, Ashkelon, Red Sea, Galilee, Lebanon, Iran (Persia), Iraq (Babylon) and Syria.

But while some of them can be said to constitute the war epicentres, others are tangential to the war. In this write-up, which will run for some days, I intend to take a closer look at some forgotten but important facts about the Biblical places and how they are connected with the war.

#ISRAEL

The modern state of Israel, with the “Star of David” (Magen David) on its national flag, Jerusalem as its capital, and “The Hope” as its national anthem, was established in 1948. However, carefully reading the Bible will show its name predates its existence (Genesis 32:24-31).

Some names it gives its military defence systems, covert security operations, monetary currency, treaties signed with other nations or some of its energy projects remind us of Bible names and incidents. Some of them are: “David’s Sling (1 Samuel 17:39-49)” – Israel’s land-based, stationary air defence system that intercepts enemy planes, drones, tactical ballistic missiles, medium to long-range rockets and cruise missiles and “Operation Wrath of God”(2 Chronicles 34:21) – the 20-year covert assassination campaign project by Mossad to track and kill, wherever they are in the world, terrorists involved in the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games.

Others are:  “the Shekel” (Exodus 30:13),  name of the country’s currency; “Abraham Accords” (Genesis 21:22-32) – name of the peace treaty it signed with the Arab League in the 2010s;  “Tamar” (Genesis 38:6; 2 Samuel 133:1) – name of the natural gas reserve found near the coast of Israel in 2004 and “Leviathan” (Job 41:1; Psalm 74:14), name of the second gas reserve discovered in 2010

Differences between ancient and modern Israel

All the same, differences exist between ancient Israel and its modern state. For instance, while the old nation operated a theocratic government, modern Israel operates a unicameral system of government or a unitary parliamentary system known as Knesset. The parties meet, in complex coalitions, to endorse governments. The Israeli government is currently headed by Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu who has been Prime Minister for 16 years (namely, 1996-1999; 2009 -2021 and 2023 till date).

He is also the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history. His surname, “Netanyahu”, in the Hebrew language, means “God-sent” or “God-given.” In Igbo, that will translate as “Chizitere” or “Chinyere/Chinyelu” or “Ebun Oluwa” /“Iranse Oluwa” in Yoruba.

Still on differences, while Judaism constituted the only accepted form of worship in ancient Israel, today, even though it still constitutes the major religion in Israel, we have other faiths like Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. But since its independence, 76 years ago, it has continued to be in constant conflict with its Arab neighbours who saw its continual existence, a Jewish state, among Arab nations as “nakhba” (Arabic word for “catastrophe”).

Two sides of the enmity between Israel and Arab neighbours

They are divided into two groups. One, there are moderate ones like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Quarter, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, etc who, after, many years of battles, have come to accept the wisdom in the Achebean Igbo quote (“let the kite perch and the hawk perch; any of them that will not let the other perch, let its wings break”).

Two, there are hardliners like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, supported, militarily by states like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen and who look forward to seeing Israel wiped out, by sheer force of arms. But the result is the destruction of human lives and physical infrastructures that we are witnessing today, on a massive scale, across the region.

Since the United Nations, the United States and other world powers mediating, over the years, in the crises between the Jews and Arabs, have been unable to bring peace between them, some apocalyptic commentators believe that the cyclic violence will likely continue until Christ, the Prince of Peace, comes to establish peace on earth.

Backbones of Israel’s military might

One of the things that Israel has going for it is its expertise in national intelligence-gathering and intimidating military might. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former President of the Republic of Iran (2005-2013) recently told the story of how, in 2021, the Iranian intelligence service (VAJA) set up a secret service division and specifically tasked it with the job of rooting out Israeli spies or Mossad agents within its ranks.

But surprisingly, in the end, 20 agents were discovered to be working as moles and providing information on Iran’s nuclear bomb developments, to Israel and the United States. Worse still, the head of the counterintelligence unit appointed by the Iranian government to investigate the information received about those 20 double agents, turned out also to be an Israeli agent. 

 On military might, apart from highly trained armed forces, fully equipped with modernized fighting equipment, all Israeli citizens, male and female, undergo three-year and two-year mandatory military training, respectively, the moment they turn 18. Without a discharge certificate showing that you did so successfully, you may not get a job in any corporation or public service in Israel. In times of war, those are the kind of people the country mobilises as reservists, depending on the unit you graduated from.

Talking about military might, commando units of the Israeli Defence Forces are masters at disguises. In 1972, four Palestinian gunmen and women, armed with explosives and other dangerous weapons, and disguised as couples, boarded a Sabena scheduled passenger flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv, via Vienna.

But halfway through the journey, they hijacked the plane and instructed the Captain, a Briton married to an Israeli, to land the plane at Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport). He did so. Thereafter, negotiations began between the hijackers and the Israeli government, while the plane was parked on the airport tarmac.

In the course of it, they demanded that a certain number of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, be released in exchange for the lives of Israeli passenger hostages inside the plane. Otherwise, the Boeing 707 plane would be blown up with all the passengers inside. 

Roles, rules of disguise

All that was needed to settle the matter was a special military rescue operation called “Operation Isotope.” In it, Israeli commandos, disguised as aero-mechanics or technicians and carrying some toolboxes, came inside the plane to repair some alleged ‘hydraulic faults’ which made the Airbus suddenly have ‘flat tyres’ the previous night.

What the four hijackers did not know was that the commandos hid their assault rifles inside their white overalls. But before they discovered the trick, the disguised commandoes had gotten inside the plane, positioned themselves and started shooting. Hot bullets flew up and down. While the commandos immediately eliminated the male hijackers they mortally wounded their female counterparts who were later arrested.

Incidentally, Netanyahu who was then a captain in the commando unit, and one of those who took part in the rescue operation, was wounded on the shoulder. This happened when a bullet meant for one of the male hijackers pierced through his body and hit him.

His elder brother, Lt. Col. Yonathan Netanyahu, in 1976, led a military rescue operation to Uganda in which he unfortunately lost his life – the only Israeli soldier killed during the operation. Codenamed “Operation Thunderbolt”, the military action came after the Air France plane conveying passengers from Tel Aviv to France was hijacked halfway through its journey. That was after a stopover in Athens, Greece. Thereafter, it was flown, first to Libya and next to Uganda.

There, passengers and crew were kept in the airport arrival hall for days while negotiations went on, on their behalf, between the Israeli government and their Palestinian/German captors, seven in number. Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada, the then military President of the country, acted as a go-between.

But unknown to the hijackers, Israel was only using the opportunity of their negotiations to buy time. They were not to know this until Israeli commandos, flying across the Red Sea, landed at the airport, in four military transport planes, in the dead of the night, and, in a blaze of gunfire, rescued the 102 passengers or so, held hostage by the terrorists.

During their preparations for the operation in Israel, a burly Israeli army officer who looked like Idi Amin, in height and body build, was selected to act the part. The only problem was his skin colour. To remove the suspicion that might arise because of that, theatre make-up artists were paid to paint his face and arms black. So also did they the eight commandos assigned to be his ‘bodyguards.’ They were all dressed up in Ugandan Army uniforms by the time they were airborne to Uganda.

With Idi Amin’s look-alike seated at the back of a black Mercedes Benz car that resembled his, plate number ensigns and all,  with a Ugandan flag flying atop its bonnet and the ‘bodyguards’ following closely behind, in an army escort vehicle, painted in Ugandan Army colour, the Strike Force stealthily approached the airport building hall where the hostages were being held.

The moment that dozens of Ugandan soldiers on guard duty sighted them approaching and mistaking them for real, they stood their assault rifles down by their sides, stiffened up and saluted smartly, as a mark of honour and respect. But the commandos’ guns, fitted with silencers, coughed for a while and quickly brought them down. Before the hijackers and Ugandan airport officers on duty, that night could make up their minds on what to make of the unfolding scene, the visiting Israeli commandos had filed out to take over the entire airport environment.

In the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli commandos have applied the disguise strategy twice. One was in June 2024, when they rescued four Israeli hostages, three men and a woman, held by Hamas in a refugee camp in Gaza. News reports said that the majority of the commandos who took part in the rescue operation came dressed as Hamas operatives. This was why they were not detected on time until the operation began.

Some months earlier, in January 2024, another set of commandos entered a hospital in Jenin, West Bank, dressed as nurses and medical doctors. Armed with stethoscopes hanging from their necks, syringes and medical aid boxes, they looked like medical personnel. But hidden under their doctors’ uniforms were their assault rifles. With such disguise, they were able to enter the hospital wards, without raising eyebrows. But, in a fierce gun battle that followed, they eliminated Hamas operatives rumoured to be operating from the hospital. Is this what the Lord meant when He said: “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light”? (Luke 16:8, KJV).

• Abanobi, pioneer staff, Weekend Concord, former Associate Editor, The Sun newspaper, Lagos, and winner of Governor Olusegun Mimiko Prize for Foreign News Reporter of the Year: 2018 Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) is member, Journalists for Christ International Fellowship. All rights reserved. No part of this write-up should be republished without the author’s permission.