Israel on High Security Alert in Wake of Jerusalem Massacre

Israeli security forces across the nation were placed on the highest level of alert Friday, following last night's terrorist shooting spree at a landmark Jerusalem yeshiva which left eight Jewish seminary students dead. Even before the shooting massacre, police were poised to raise their alert ahead of Muslim Friday prayers at the mosques in Jerusalem, after receiving intelligence reports that Palestinian worshippers may attempt to disrupt order. Only Muslim men over the age of 45 with a valid blue identity card were to be allowed to enter the Temple Mount for prayers. Israeli authorities are keen to smother signs of unrest in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and even among Israeli Arabs in the wake of last weekend's sharp escalation in fighting along the Gaza border. An Arab from an east Jerusalem neighborhood used his access as a driver for a prominent Jerusalem seminary to infiltrate the crowded library and halls of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva on Thursday evening and spray hundreds of rounds from an automatic rifle at Jewish religious students, leaving 8 dead and up to three dozen wounded.

• JJ Commentary: Despite ongoing calls for peace negotiations, there will be no true peace for Israel. After increasing hostilities, a false peace will be ushered in by the Antichrist, which will allow Israel to rebuild their temple – without, however, the inner and outer courts which are overrun by the Genitles” as prophesied in Revelation 11:2 (i.e. the Dome of the Rock). But then, in the middle of the 7-year Tribulation period (Daniel 9:24-27), the Antichrist will commit the “abomination of desolation” and declare himself to be God and defile the temple with pagan sacrifices (Daniel 11:2, Matthew 24:15, 2Thessalonians 2:3-4).