I tried to be organized and write a proper update with consideration given to structure and organization, but the truth is that this is going to be more like a disorganized spewing of words and thoughts. I simply do not have the emotional bandwidth at this point to organize my thoughts.
As of this writing, at least 250 Israelis have been killed and approximately 1,500 have been injured. Dozens have been held hostage in their homes in Southern Israel and, even more horrifying, many have been kidnapped and taken to Gaza – children, adults, boys, girls, senior citizens…
My Facebook feed is filled with heartbreaking posts from people who haven’t been able to locate their loved ones – parents trying to find their children, siblings trying to find other siblings… I’ll spare you the details of most of the stories (mainly because I can’t bring myself to write them), but believe me when I say that they are devastating.
On the news this evening, I watched a seasoned reporter who was barely able to keep his composure while talking about the potential fate of girls and young women currently being held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. I heard about a mother who was on the phone with her young sons as they were being kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Can you imagine? It’s completely and utterly incomprehensible.
This is the worst day that I’ve ever experienced in my 32 years of living in Israel. I’ve never been so afraid to look at the news as I’ve been today. Every time I hit refresh, the numbers of dead and injured increase. Every time I hit refresh, there are more stories about kidnappings and hostage situations. There’s more agony in Israel today than I can bear.
I’ll add that personally, we are safe and fortunate. We live far away from the action, and have only had to enter our in-house bomb shelter three times today – a fraction of what Israelis to the south of us have done. Our son is safe on his base, having been called back a day early because of the situation, like most other soldiers today.
We still don’t know exactly how bad things really are. When you live in Israel long enough, you learn to understand the code of the news reporting, where bad news is often purposely given in stages and you can often tell by what the journalists do say that there is so much more that they aren’t saying.
And that’s where we are now, knowing that we do not yet know everything, and that It’s probably going to be so much worse than we can possibly imagine. I’m afraid to see what tomorrow will bring…
