Things here in Israel have been a bit hectic, with over 100 rockets being fired at us since last night. Rockets hit Jerusalem (population approx 800,000) and Hadera (population approx 100,000), with others being shot down over Tel Aviv (population over 400,000) and other Israeli cities.
Israel has called up 40,000 reserves, and has hit terror sites in Gaza. And as Brian posted earlier, we vaporized five terrorists who landed on Israeli shores on a mission to murder.
Thanks to the Iron Dome and our bomb shelters, no-one has been significantly injured or killed.
On a personal note, I found myself in the hospital with my wife this evening, due to her spiking a fever. Given her precarious, post-chemo health situation, I had to take her to the emergency room. As she was being tended to by a nurse, the Code Red alert went off. Since we were already on a ‘safe’ floor of the hospital, we did not need to run off to a shelter.
But as the alert sounded, we looked at each other and with horror in our eyes, we both uttered the name of the city in which we live, and where our 3 of our 5 children were being looked after by our live-in help (a necessity for us due to my wife’s health situation). The nurse – who also happens to be from our city – got on the phone and confirmed that the Code Red had gone off there as well!
We frantically called our live-in’s cell phone, but no answer. So we called the home phone, and our 8-year-old son answered.
“Are you ok, Z?”
“Yes”
“You made it to the safe room?”
“Yes, me and B [our live-in] stayed down there. I am saying tehillim (Psalms)”
“What about E and H [our two youngest daughters]”
“They were in their beds”
“WHAT?! Please put B on the phone.”
It turns out that our live-in tried to wake up the two young girls during the siren, but they would not wake up, so she panicked and brought only my son down with her to the safe room. Thankfully, a rocket did not land in the vicinity of our our house.
I mention this story because when you read the news – especially if you live overseas – you might not really understand what we are going through. After all, no-one has been killed (so far).
And there are plenty of others who have their own stories to tell.
Like my close friend who was driving home from work, when he heard the siren go off. He got out of the car, hit the ground and watched as the Iron Dome shot the rocket out of the sky followed by a big boom.
This is not some apocalyptic movie. This is our current reality.
We are all being deliberately targeted by terrorists bent on our destruction.
