Dear friends. There was so much to tell you about our life here in Israel during the last month through the kidnapping, hopeful search, shocking bodies discovery, funerals, appalling group killing of a Palestinian boy, and the rocket exchange that started since then. But I couldn't find the way and time to tell it right, because as you know everything here in the Middle East is deeply rooted in religion, history, politics and very complicated. You are likely reading it via various news sources. What I thought I will do with the short time I have is to just tell you about our days.
Take Thursday, July 10th, Day 3 of the Operation Protective Edge (Israeli name) and Operation Ramadan the 10th (Palestinian name).
I had an endocrinologist appointment at 8am in the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, appointment to which I took our daughter with me. As soon as we approach the elevator in the Hospital Building the rocket siren goes off and after a short heart pinch we follow the crowd to the stairs and then ground floor surgery waiting rooms. There is a TV and a few tired people that had likely spent a night there. One of the women carefully rolls her own cigarettes and I point my daughter to this strange old craft just to take the edge of the stress off. I notice that everywhere around the hospital there are freshly made paper signs telling what is the nearest "safe place". We call home and learn that the sirens went off at home as well and my husband had to run to the Mamad (the shelter) with our toddler. After the required 10 minutes of waiting we are back to the elevator where we meet my doctor who is also accompanied by her 11-year old daughter, uncomfortable leaving her at home alone on such days. The girls play, we go through the Dr. appointment and an hour later we are on the way back home.
As we drive through Tel Aviv everything seems perfectly normal, other then the occasional interruption of the radio program with the siren announcements in the various areas of the country. I receive an instant message from my husband that he decided not to send our toddler to her day care that doesn't have a bomb shelter and he asked my parents to come and stay with her during the day. My parents babysit my brother's kids this week in a nearby town and they were on their way to the day care at 8am when the sirens went off this morning. They all heard and saw the explosion in the skies and had to calm down the kids before bringing them to their summer camp that was relocated to a local school with a shelter.
I drop my daughter at home and head to my work in Rosh ha Ayin. Few people brought kids of various ages with them to work hesitant to leave them home alone. I see an email from our CEO saying that the management understands the circumstances and personal needs we may have nowadays. It encourages us to put the family first. One of our new employees is from the Ashkelon, the closest large city to the Gaza strip, which comes under rocket attack hourly now. Her husband got Tzav 8 (reservist order to get to the army) and she is staying at home with their two young girls for a few days now. In the afternoon my cell phone flashes the message of another rocket attack on Tel Aviv and surrounding areas. I am worrying about my parents and kids at home rushing to the shelter in our circular stairs. Nadia had prepared all the first aid items in this room instructed by the soldiers that came to her school a few months ago.
Leaving work early as my parents have to go help my brother. People tell me that route 5 is closed as a car with an explosive material has been stopped along it. Apparently police asked people to avoid this area for at least two hours. I am panicking a bit but quickly relived to see that Waze predicts 20 min driving time home.
Later in the afternoon, all kids are home. Our son just returned from a 5-day-long swim camp in the North and is catching up on sleep. We expect a visitor from the past: Julie whose children were together in the Gan Yeladim preschool and then SSDS with our kids. Julie now lives in Seattle but is visiting Israel. Our youngest is anxious to leave home and I dare to take her and drive to pick Julie up from her friends hotel in Tel Aviv praying that there will be no rockets while we are on the road. As Julie enters our car I see that her friend looks familiar - a fellow Newton family that also had a kid on the JCC Swim team.
We spend great time catching up with Julie on the kids stories, our professional steps, new lives in the new places, mutual friends. She calls her husband who is reporting that both her parents and her kids (in the camp) are very alarmed about the situation in Israel and worry for her well-being. She tries to calm everyone describing her great time at the beach today unspoiled by a bizarre rocket siren and remote view of the explosion in the air.
We got our online food order delivered from a large local chain and I shush my kids to stop talking politics noticing the Arab-looking delivery man that sends a worried looks at our TV screen.
Later on another Newton couple stops by: Riki and Motti, our good old friends whom we met at MyGym on Needham street when our kids were 3 years old. We hear the news of extensive rockets in the South and causalities in Ashdod. Our son's friend posts an image of a burning car that he sees in front of his Ashdod house. Riki, who remembers my hesitation to return to Israel and is surprised that I am still here, asks me whether I feel my heart sink every time I hear the alert news. The war still seems to be far away to be really scary but I do question myself daily whether the Mediterranean pleasures and family proximity seem to outweigh the bear of this never-ending conflict.
No more rocket sirens in our area till next morning. Still I have a hard time sleeping with everything that is going on. At 3am the news message flashes on my cell that there is a suspected infiltration in Eilat and all the beaches are closed. This later turns to be a false alarm. I calm myself planning what to bring for tomorrow to our toddler's Day care as she is a Shabbat Helper and slowly dose into sleep.
Take Thursday, July 10th, Day 3 of the Operation Protective Edge (Israeli name) and Operation Ramadan the 10th (Palestinian name).
I had an endocrinologist appointment at 8am in the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, appointment to which I took our daughter with me. As soon as we approach the elevator in the Hospital Building the rocket siren goes off and after a short heart pinch we follow the crowd to the stairs and then ground floor surgery waiting rooms. There is a TV and a few tired people that had likely spent a night there. One of the women carefully rolls her own cigarettes and I point my daughter to this strange old craft just to take the edge of the stress off. I notice that everywhere around the hospital there are freshly made paper signs telling what is the nearest "safe place". We call home and learn that the sirens went off at home as well and my husband had to run to the Mamad (the shelter) with our toddler. After the required 10 minutes of waiting we are back to the elevator where we meet my doctor who is also accompanied by her 11-year old daughter, uncomfortable leaving her at home alone on such days. The girls play, we go through the Dr. appointment and an hour later we are on the way back home.
As we drive through Tel Aviv everything seems perfectly normal, other then the occasional interruption of the radio program with the siren announcements in the various areas of the country. I receive an instant message from my husband that he decided not to send our toddler to her day care that doesn't have a bomb shelter and he asked my parents to come and stay with her during the day. My parents babysit my brother's kids this week in a nearby town and they were on their way to the day care at 8am when the sirens went off this morning. They all heard and saw the explosion in the skies and had to calm down the kids before bringing them to their summer camp that was relocated to a local school with a shelter.
I drop my daughter at home and head to my work in Rosh ha Ayin. Few people brought kids of various ages with them to work hesitant to leave them home alone. I see an email from our CEO saying that the management understands the circumstances and personal needs we may have nowadays. It encourages us to put the family first. One of our new employees is from the Ashkelon, the closest large city to the Gaza strip, which comes under rocket attack hourly now. Her husband got Tzav 8 (reservist order to get to the army) and she is staying at home with their two young girls for a few days now. In the afternoon my cell phone flashes the message of another rocket attack on Tel Aviv and surrounding areas. I am worrying about my parents and kids at home rushing to the shelter in our circular stairs. Nadia had prepared all the first aid items in this room instructed by the soldiers that came to her school a few months ago.
Leaving work early as my parents have to go help my brother. People tell me that route 5 is closed as a car with an explosive material has been stopped along it. Apparently police asked people to avoid this area for at least two hours. I am panicking a bit but quickly relived to see that Waze predicts 20 min driving time home.
Later in the afternoon, all kids are home. Our son just returned from a 5-day-long swim camp in the North and is catching up on sleep. We expect a visitor from the past: Julie whose children were together in the Gan Yeladim preschool and then SSDS with our kids. Julie now lives in Seattle but is visiting Israel. Our youngest is anxious to leave home and I dare to take her and drive to pick Julie up from her friends hotel in Tel Aviv praying that there will be no rockets while we are on the road. As Julie enters our car I see that her friend looks familiar - a fellow Newton family that also had a kid on the JCC Swim team.
We spend great time catching up with Julie on the kids stories, our professional steps, new lives in the new places, mutual friends. She calls her husband who is reporting that both her parents and her kids (in the camp) are very alarmed about the situation in Israel and worry for her well-being. She tries to calm everyone describing her great time at the beach today unspoiled by a bizarre rocket siren and remote view of the explosion in the air.
We got our online food order delivered from a large local chain and I shush my kids to stop talking politics noticing the Arab-looking delivery man that sends a worried looks at our TV screen.
Later on another Newton couple stops by: Riki and Motti, our good old friends whom we met at MyGym on Needham street when our kids were 3 years old. We hear the news of extensive rockets in the South and causalities in Ashdod. Our son's friend posts an image of a burning car that he sees in front of his Ashdod house. Riki, who remembers my hesitation to return to Israel and is surprised that I am still here, asks me whether I feel my heart sink every time I hear the alert news. The war still seems to be far away to be really scary but I do question myself daily whether the Mediterranean pleasures and family proximity seem to outweigh the bear of this never-ending conflict.
No more rocket sirens in our area till next morning. Still I have a hard time sleeping with everything that is going on. At 3am the news message flashes on my cell that there is a suspected infiltration in Eilat and all the beaches are closed. This later turns to be a false alarm. I calm myself planning what to bring for tomorrow to our toddler's Day care as she is a Shabbat Helper and slowly dose into sleep.
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