I’m glad that Hezbollah waited until I was out of the shower this morning, but obviously would have preferred if they had waited a few more minutes for me to finish drying off and get dressed! Needless to say, I’m definitely grateful that we have our own shelter, and that I didn’t have to run to a communal shelter and make small talk with neighbors while wrapped in a towel…
And, even as I can see the humorous side of this, the very serious bottom line here is that Hezbollah continues to fire dozens of missiles and armed drones at Israeli population centers (sometimes they fire more than a hundred a day – I’m updating at 4:25pm to share that more than 160 projectiles have been fired from Lebanon so far today), as it has done multiple times a day, every day, since October 8th, 2023. If you’re wondering why Israel is active in Lebanon these days, the answer lies with Hezbollah. None of this would be happening if…
Hezbollah hadn’t started attacking Israel…
UN Security Council resolution 1701 had been enforced…
UNIFIL had fulfilled its mandate…
Anyone had condemned Hezbollah or intervened at all over the past year to get them to stop firing before we had to do it ourselves.
I honestly don’t know how people living in the Western Negev communities close to Gaza or the people living in communities near the northern border with Lebanon stay sane, given the frequency at which they have been and continue to be targeted (and even as I type this, I periodically see rocket alarms for our northern border communities). This is neither a normal nor a sustainable way to live!
We have been very fortunate in our town, in that we have had relatively few rocket alarms. I’ve experienced them at home and at work, but never in a spot where there was no shelter nearby. Under these conditions, the alarms aren’t scary, and given that they have been few and far between where I live, they are more of an annoyance than a disruption (though I do find them more stressful when I’m alone). But I’d be lying if said they weren’t an exhausting, stark reminder that there are people who want us dead and are trying hard to make that happen.
I’ll also add that I feel lucky that I haven’t been caught outside during a rocket alarm at any time. One of my greatest concerns these days is that there will be an alarm while I’m driving somewhere, and there will be no place to shelter properly, and I will simply have to lie down on the ground with my arms covering my head for ten minutes (the amount of time they’ve determined that missile and interceptor fragments can still fall). I now keep an oversized rain poncho in my car just in case, so that I will have something to lie on. I also keep my eyes open for “good” places and directions to run towards – or away from, like gas stations. Can you imagine having to consider such scenarios?
I’m traveling to Rome late next week, meeting a dear friend from university who lives in the US. As excited as I am about our plans, and as much as I’m looking forward to soaking up the culture and just being together, I am no less excited about having an entire week where I don’t have to worry about rocket alarms, listen to the daily roar of military aircraft flying overhead, or hear the window-rattling booms of interceptors destroying missiles fired at us by Hezbollah.
Crazy, isn’t it?
