For a long time, I have been warning my readers that an apocalyptic war in the Middle East will be one of the conflicts that defines World War III.  The good news is that the war in the Middle East has not escalated to an apocalyptic level yet.  But after what we witnessed on Monday, we are just one step away.

The building that was destroyed by the IDF airstrike was reportedly directly next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus…

A building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus has been destroyed in an airstrike, reportedly killing a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and five others – with state media saying Israel was behind the attack.

Pictures show the building in Syria’s capital razed to the ground, with huge plumes of smoke rising from the site following the explosion this afternoon and emergency workers rushing to the scene.

This particular building was apparently the residence of the Iranian ambassador to Syria.

The Syrian government says that the missiles that destroyed this building were fired from the Golan Heights…

The Syrian Ministry of Defence responded with a statement.

“This evening, the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” it said.

“Our air defences responded to the missiles and shot down some of them. The aggression led to the destruction of the entire building and the martyrdom and injury of everyone inside.

“Work is underway to recover the bodies of the martyrs, treat the wounded and remove debris.”

It appears that the IDF was targeting a gathering of very important regional leaders.

Mohammad Reza Zahedi was among those that were killed.  He was the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps…

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was confirmed killed in the strike, alongside several other Iranian diplomats visiting the Syrian capital.

The IRGC-managed Fars News agency announced the commander’s death on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another important Iranian military official named Haji Rahimi is also dead…

Haji Rahimi was named as the second commander killed in the attack on Iran’s consulate building in the Syrian capital, according to the statement shared by state news agency IRNA on Monday night.

Haji Rahimi was reportedly a coordinator for the Quds Force, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News.

This was a major victory for Israel, but the Iranians will inevitably respond. In fact, Iran’s ambassador to Syria has already publicly stated that the response will be “harsh”…

Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari, who was not injured, said at least five people had been killed in the attack and that Tehran’s response would be “harsh.”

The Iranian Embassy in Lebanon said that the “barbaric Israeli aggression is a flagrant violation of international laws, diplomatic norms, and the requirements of the Vienna Convention.”

We shall see what Iran chooses to do.

As Zero Hedge has aptly noted, if Iran’s response is too severe, it could spark “an all-out regional war”…

Depending on Iran’s response, this could be the start of an all-out regional war. For months now, Iranian-made ballistic missiles and drones have rained down on Israel, fired by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. This new brazen Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy takes things into uncharted territory, and also opens up the potential for the Iranians to target Israeli embassies abroad.

Of course the Iranians have already been escalating matters.

Prior to the IDF airstrike on Damascus on Monday, Iranian-backed militants in Iraq used a drone to attack a key naval base in southern Israel…

In a significant first of the Gaza war marking a very serious escalation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have confirmed that a drone which slammed into a naval base in Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat early Monday morning was launched from Iraq.

The IDF its statement said it identified a “suspicious aerial target” that breached Israeli airspace “from the east” before making impact “in the Eilat Bay area” on the Red Sea. While this isn’t necessarily the first instance of Iraqi militant groups claiming to have fired on Eliat, it appears to be the first time that direct impact was made on an Israeli navy base and that the IDF has confirmed it.

How far can both sides push one another before events spiral completely out of control?

Sadly, we are getting dangerously close to a point of no return.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is also having to deal with violent anti-Netanyahu protests all over the nation…

Israeli police violently clashed with protesters across the country last night, as tens of thousands took to streets across the nation to oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership during the Israel-Hamas war.

Protesters from all parts of Israeli society flooded streets to share their rage at the Israeli prime minister and his handling of the war in Gaza that has so far left nearly 33,000 people, most of whom are civilians, dead.

And police took extreme measures to get them under control, with photographers capturing brutal moments where cops dragged demonstrators across tarmac and beat them into submission.

Benjamin Netanyahu certainly isn’t going to allow such protests to alter the course that he has set. He continues to insist that the war will never be won unless the IDF goes into Rafah…

Israel will defeat Hamas by entering the terrorist stronghold of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and destroying the remaining battalions there, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed Sunday night.

“There is no victory without entering Rafah; there is no victory without destroying the Hamas battalions there,” said Netanyahu in a primetime address, adding that the operation “will take time, but it will happen.”

The premier reiterated that only a combination of military pressure and tough negotiations would bring about the release of the remaining 134 hostages taken to Gaza by Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7.

As I discussed last week, it appears that a ground operation in Rafah will begin either this month or next month.

While all of this is happening in the Middle East, we desperately need strong leadership in the White House.

Instead, either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris will be running things until at least January 2025…

Only 38 percent of likely 2024 voters believe President Joe Biden will be alive at the end of another four-year term, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com.

And that means one thing: Vice President Kamala Harris is just as likely to be in the top job as Biden come January 2029 if he wins reelection.

Some 36 percent of likely voters believe Harris will be president at the end of the term. The exact same proportion as think Biden will be in the job.

When the time comes to make absolutely critical decisions regarding the conflict in the Middle East, do you trust either of them to be up to the job?

For a long time, we have been warned that the Middle East would eventually erupt in flames.

Now we are right at the door.

Unfortunately, most people in the western world have no idea how bad this war in the Middle East is going to become.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Ynet News :

“IDF will destroy Damascus, target Syrian President Assad if Hezbollah joins war; US warships will support Israel in war.” – Message relayed via France

Unfortunately, this threat has not caused Hezbollah to back down.

In fact, Fox News is reporting that the Israelis are now “actively fighting a secondary front along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon”…

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Wednesday that the Israeli army shelled the Lebanese border town of Duhaira and the surrounding area where the missile attack came from. He also said Israel was actively fighting a secondary front along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon, in addition to the counteroffensive the IDF is launching in the Gaza Strip.

“We have deployed tens of thousands of additional units along the northern border,” Conricus said, including infantry, special forces, armored forces, artillery, air forces, and “additional assets including intelligence and logistics.”

Hezbollah has not formally entered the war yet. But I think that will likely happen very quickly once Israel invades Gaza. So could Israel actually turn Damascus into a pile or rubble?

Well, just consider what the IDF is already doing to Gaza. We are being told that Gaza was hit by an astounding 250 airstrikes in a single hour…

Pictures show neighbourhoods in Gaza almost destroyed after Israel launched 250 airstrikes in just one hour.

It comes after an Israeli defense official promise the strip will become a ‘tent city’ with every building to be demolished.

The IDF is not messing around.

One Israeli military official admitted that they are attacking “on an unprecedented scale”, and nobody can really argue with that fact…

Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler, the Israel Air Force’s chief of staff, says fighter jets are striking the Gaza Strip on an “unprecedented scale.”

“We are attacking the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, because what happened here is something that has never happened before. There is an enemy here firing rockets, raiding a civilian population,” Tishler says in a call with reporters.

“We are never going back to that,” he says.

So far, a whopping 2,687 targets inside Gaza have been hit…

The Israel Defense Forces has carried out strikes against 2,687 targets across the Gaza Strip since Saturday, according to fresh military data.

According to the data, 1,329 of the targets are multi-story buildings containing Hamas assets, including war rooms where the terror group manages the fighting against Israel.

One of those targets was the Islamic University of Gaza. We are being told that it was a “central training center”, and now it has been completely destroyed…

The Israel Defense Forces says it has bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, “which serves as a central training center for Hamas engineers.”

The military says fighter jets targeted the campus, located in Gaza City.

According to the IDF, the university was “an important center of political and military power” for Hamas and a “training institution for the development and production of weapons.”

IDF says it has bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, "which serves as a central training center for Hamas engineers." pic.twitter.com/cKu7jEzsNq

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) October 11, 2023

In the past, Israel was always so careful to avoid collateral damage when it would conduct attacks in Gaza.

But now Israel’s defense minister is making it clear that there will be no holding back…

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said ‘all restraints on fighters have been released’ and promised an intensification of fighting.

‘Hamas wanted a change and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be,’ he said.

‘We started the offensive from the air, later on we will also come from the ground. We’ve been controlling the area since Day Two and we are on the offensive. It will only intensify.

‘Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors — we will eliminate him at the height of our power and without compromise.’

If the IDF were to apply the same treatment to Damascus, it would draw Syria into the war.

Once Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria have all entered the war, it is probably just a matter of time before Iran joins the conflict too.

And once Iran enters the war, there is no telling how far things could escalate.

Already, one member of the Knesset named Revital Gotliv has been calling for the use of nuclear weapons…

“Jericho Missile! Jericho Missile! Strategic alert. before considering the introduction of forces. Doomsday weapon! This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength,” Gotliv wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, according to a translation.

Another post says: “I urge you to do everything and use Doomsday weapons fearlessly against our enemies,” adding that Israel “must use everything in its arsenal.”

On Tuesday, she continued with her calls of urgency.

“Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength and security!” Gotliv posted. “It’s time to kiss doomsday. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. … without mercy! without mercy!”

Everyone knows that Israel has nukes, and let us hope that they will not be used any time soon. But we should all be able to understand why she is so furious.

At one location that Hamas attacked in southern Israel, “knives were found left in some of the children”…

There is evidence in Kibbutz Be’eri that children were slain in front of their parents, Maj. Doron Spielman says. Knives were found left in some of the children.

Bodies are still being taken out of the kibbutz, which Spielman says will be remembered as a symbol of Hamas’s massacre, like Auschwitz is the symbol of the Holocaust.

Some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by the terror group, including over 100 at Be’eri alone.

When Hamas decided to rape women, murder children and kidnap the elderly, they awakened the full fury of the Jewish people. And when Israel sends troops into Gaza, the Great Middle East War will be unleashed.

In my most recent book, I wrote about an “endless barrage of missiles” being fired at Israel. I believe that is about to become a reality.

There is going to be so much death and destruction in the days ahead, and there will be many more cities that will be transformed into piles of rubble before this is all over.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.