The tomb of Nahum is one of many shrines in Iraq traditionally thought by local Jews to be the resting places of biblical figures. As Islamic State’s forces draw nearer, its fate is uncertain. Sheren Khalel and Matthew Vickery write (includes pictures and video):

The crumbling stone walls of one of Iraq’s last synagogues remain mostly standing, nestled in the center of the small town, against the backdrop of the Bayhidhra mountains. Inside purportedly lies the tomb of “Nahum the Elkoshite”—meaning, of the town of al-Qosh—the Hebrew prophet who vividly predicted the fall of Nineveh in the 7th century BCE.

Asir Salaam Shajaa, an Assyrian Christian born and raised in al-Qosh, dusts off the green cloth that lies over the ancient tomb in the center of the run-down synagogue. He is adamant that resting under the heavy stones are really the remains of Prophet Nahum. Like his father and his grandfather before him, Shajaa takes care of the site dutifully, fulfilling a promise made more than 60 years ago to the fleeing Jewish residents of the town. . . .

Before the Jewish exodus from Iraq, Nahum’s tomb was reportedly visited by thousands of worshipers every year, particularly during the Shavuot holiday.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].