Good day. It's Monday, September the 23rd, 2024. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins,

narrating today's article written by Denison Forum co-founder and CEO, Dr. Jim Denison.

This morning, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes on southern Lebanon after warning people

living in or near buildings used by Hezbollah to evacuate. And Israeli military spokesman said,

we will do whatever is needed to return evacuated residents of northern Israel to their home safely.

This, after a Friday air strike on a Beirut suburb, took out, quote,

an entire class of senior leaders of the militant group's most elite fighting force,

in quote, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Among them was senior leader Ibrahim Akeel,

wanted by the U.S. for his role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and a Marine Corps barracks that killed 300 people.

Isaac Herzog said yesterday that the leaders were meeting to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7th, this time in northern Israel.

In response to the airstrike, Hezbollah fired a barrage of missiles at Israel yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal calls Israel's escalating attacks an implied ultimatum,

make a deal to pull back from Israel's northern border or go to war.

So far, Hezbollah seems to be choosing

the latter. One of their officials called yesterday's missile strikes just the beginning.

As the Washington Post reports, both sides appeared to be spiraling closer toward all-out war.

But why? Militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad primarily reside in so-called

occupied territories, Gaza and the West Bank, that Israel's enemies claim were stolen by the Jewish

state in the 1948 and 1967 wars. Their jihadist acts are part of their purported purpose to reclaim the land for its

quote-unquote rightful Palestinian owners. However, as international relations professor Christopher

Phillips notes in his new book, Battleground, Ten Conflicts that explain the New Middle East,

...