Today is the start of the school year here in Israel. And as thousands of children headed out on school buses today, I am sure many a parent had yesterday’s events foremost in their minds.
Meanwhile, in Russia, there are currently some school children experiencing the horrors of Islamic terrorism as we speak.
Attackers bearing guns and wrapped in suicide-bomb belts seized a school in the Russian region of North Ossetia Wednesday morning and were holding hundreds of hostages including some 200 children, news reports said.The seizure took place on the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that a large number of parents had accompanied their children to class. Reports said the raid took place just after a ceremony marking the school year’s start.
Sergei Vlasov, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry in Moscow, confirmed the seizure, but did not immediately have further details.The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing regional emergency officials, said about 400 people including some 200 children were being held captive.The Interfax news agency, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said there were 17 attackers, both make and female, and the gang included some who were wearing suicide-bomb belts.The in the city of Beslan, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, a republic that borders warring Chechnya.There were no immediate reports of whether the assailants were making demands or indications of who they were.
This of course comes after yesterday’s suicide bombing in Moscow, which killed nine people.
Here in Israel, as we bury our dead, our thoughts are with the Russian people, as well as the French, Nepalese…in fact, everyone being affected by Islamic terror.
And while our children are the ones currently in school, we are the ones who must learn the lessons from this terror.
The fight against terror must be an uncompromising one. This means supporting all nations that fight terror, no matter what the terrorist’s cause is. And unless all of the civilized world does everything in its power to fight this evil, I quiver to think about what kind of future we are guaranteeing for our children.
