Experts are currently at odds about the location of the ancient city of Bethsaida, mentioned frequently in the New Testament as being somewhere in northern Israel. Now the team excavating one of two possible sites for Bethsaida has made an intriguing discovery: a city gate from the 11th century BCE that suggests that this was also the more ancient city of Zer, known from the Hebrew Bible. James Rogers writes:

“There are not too many monumental discoveries dating from the reign of King David,” Rami Arav, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska and the Bethsaida excavation director [stated]. “This is absolutely a significant contribution to biblical archaeology and biblical studies.”

Arav explained that Bethsaida/Zer was founded in the 11th century BCE as a pre-planned city and the capital of the biblical kingdom of Geshur. “The city included a marketplace, granary, city walls, city gate, a high place in the city gate, and a cobblestone courtyard in front of the gate,” he said.

The city was destroyed in 920 BCE. “Since this is the period of time of King David and since the Bible [states] that King David married Maachah the daughter of Talmai the king of Geshur, it is reasonable [to conjecture] that King David walked on these very cobblestones when he visited the city,” Arav added. An ancient stele, or monumental stone slab, was discovered adjacent to the gate’s tower. The stele depicts the moon-god worshipped by the ancient Aramean people.

According to the Bible, Geshur was an independent kingdom in David’s time, but was later conquered by King Hazael of Aram.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.