Dateline Jerusalem — It never stops raining rockets. It was the 7th of July, not the 4th, it was in Israel, not the United States, yet the black skies were lit up with what seemed like fireworks, or a more adequate description from the Star-Spangled Banner. “And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.” I had been watching a police show from my bed. As a patrol car came across my television screen, I heard the blaring of a siren. I did not think twice about it. But when it left the screen, the siren’s scream continued. I realized it was the real thing.
I live in an older building that does not have a “safe or security” room in my apartment for times of emergency. The safest place for me and my neighbors is to stand between our front doors and one of the walls in the apartment building stairwell. I ran to my front door. Although it always takes forever to unlock it, it seemed like forever and a day to get the door opened. I am lucky to have one minute to find safety. In some cities south of me, they have 9 seconds. It takes me longer than that for my brain to comprehend the situation. I stood with my neighbors as the Code Red Alert sirens continued to wail. Then we heard the booms, the thuds, and the building shook slightly. Definitely scary.
Closer Call
Less than 24 hours later, on the 8th of July, I am in the stairwell of my apartment building again. This time I brought my laptop computer and cell phone with camera with me. Earlier in the day, I heard the jets. At night, the sirens were at it again, the booms louder. The mayor's office in my city contacted the entire community by telephone. We are considered an emergency area.
To my surprise, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.), usually anti-Israel, came out with a warning that many of the images of Israel wreaking havoc in Gaza are actually photos taken five years ago. They were not even taken in Gaza but are images of conflicts in Syria and in Iraq. To my surprise, many in the U.S. are unaware of what precipitated this conflict, having only been apprised of the Palestinian point of view. They were unaware that an Arab taxi driver killed a Jewish girl, that three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped, shot and buried in a shallow grave under rocks, and that Hamas has been sending rockets into Israel non-stop. They are unaware that the Palestinians are calling for Jihad, more kidnappings, more murders of Israeli citizens.
Prime Minister Netanyahu called for a calm to the situation. Hamas ignored Israel by intensifying its barrage of rockets aimed at Israeli civilian neighborhoods. Now Fatah has joined with Hamas. In response, Israel has begun Operation Protective Edge. Unlike the Palestinians, Israel does not target civilians. It only targeted Palestinian rocket launchers, training bases, terror tunnels, and underground weapons storage facilities. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have put their citizens into harm's way by shooting rockets into Israel from Palestinian residential neighborhoods. They are a people who worship death and have little care about their own people, except to cowardly use them as human shields.
Israel's Iron Dome has protected many of Israel's populated areas from the Palestinian rocket fire, by shooting down the onslaught of rockets and missiles pounding Israeli cities. The booms I hear are the rockets being shot down. Israel's entire focus is on stopping the terrorists because millions of Israeli lives are threatened.
Here Come Bombs Again
Uh, oh! Another siren. I am in the stairwell again. Gotta finish this essay later. Attached is a photo of one of my neighbors when the boom went off.
Latest update, the 9th of July. I walked to my doctor's appointment early this morning. While waiting for the doctor, the sirens were non-stop. The receptionist, doctor, patients, other doctors and patients, and those who work in the pharmacy ran to the bomb shelter. Somehow I got the only chair. The others had to stand, only inches between them. Then the thunderous booms. After each one, people were saying “Od echad,” “another one.” After my appointment I walked the few blocks to my home, hoping the entire time that I would get there before another siren sounded.
What can be said about people who murder, maim and celebrate the brutal death of children? What can be said about a culture that rejoices in kidnapping, incites its children to murder and to hate, and rewards mothers who make their children martyrs when they tie suicide bomb belts around their children's waists? What can be said about people who attacked the ambulance carrying away the kidnapped Israeli boys' dead bodies? What can be said when they scream “Wipe Israel off the map!”? What can be said about a society that worships and honors death?
What can be said about a world that reacts to these atrocities by encouraging and justifying them?
July 10
I cannot believe my ears. Newscasters around the world are commenting about the “poor” Palestinians whose rockets and missiles launched against Israel are ineffective because Israel's Iron Dome shoots them down! If they did not launch them in the first place at Israeli civilians, they would not have to be shot down. When the Iron Dome shoots down the rockets and missiles, debris from them fall from the sky, landing on Israel's streets and roads, endangering Israelis. In the meantime my windows shake every time I hear a boom. The sirens blare, and I have to run for safety. The booms were so loud today, they sounded like the missiles were landing across the street, supposedly because they were not far from here. As for Israel targeting places in Gaza, Israel made telephone calls in Arabic and dropped leaflets, telling the Palestinians to evacuate the areas Israel was targeting but Hamas instructed their people to remain. No wonder the Palestinians have more casualties than the Israelis. We value life. They value martyrdom.
Morning of July 11
The sirens in my sleep turned out to be real. I was asleep in a dream where I was a child picking flowers at my mother's home in Los Angeles. I heard the sirens and frantically could not find a safe place in her home to protect me from rockets. I awakened from the dream only to find that the sirens were wailing at my home in Israel for real. I rushed out of bed and ran into my apartment building's stairwell. Two hours later I was speaking to my daughter-in-law in the States by phone when all of a sudden the sirens blared again. Hastily I ended the call and ran into the stairwell. I do not have a secure/safe room in my apartment because it is old. All homes and apartments less than 15 years old have a steel and concrete reinforced “safe” room.
As I stand in the stairwell, I think of my neighbors. One young mother was rocking an infant in her arms. Little boys across the hall ran out of their apartment without shoes. One was breathing heavily. Last night a neighbor told me he was in the shower when the alarm blared. He grabbed clothes and ran into the hall, his clothes still wet.
My entire schedule has been disrupted. I take my showers right after the sirens end, figuring I have at least a few minutes between sirens. I use my oven instead of cooking on the range-top so that I have no open flames when the sirens go off. I have moved from my bedroom to the dining room table so that I am close to the front door as I write this.
I have turned down Shabbat dinner invitations so that I would not be out without knowing where to find shelter. I probably will sleep out on my living room sofa tonight so I do not have so far to run.
I am thankful to G-d for all the miracles He has bestowed upon Israel. He is the real Iron Dome protecting us. Why else would we be bombarded with rockets and missiles from Gaza, and as of today, from Lebanon, too, and not suffer many casualties? Yesterday twp homes received direct hits but there were no injuries. If that is not a miracle, I do not know what is. A gas station in a nearby town had a gas tank explode today but many people were able to run to a shelter in the 45 seconds they had from the time the sirens wailed. Only one did not make it in time. The Iron Dome only shoots down rockets and missiles headed for populated areas. That is why the gas station on the road between cities received a direct hit. It is only 85 percent effective, which is why the homes got hit.
L'hitraot. Shachar