Imagine your evening…doing a final cleanup in the kitchen, thinking about what you have to do tomorrow. You’ve left the news on…it’s what some people do.
“A rocket has been fired from Yemen,” says the newscaster.
What? What did he say? I go closer and I see the bottom of the screen, “rocket fired from Yemen” is the news flash. I pick up my phone and begin to scroll. It’s a ballistic missile…the list of locations is insane. I start reading, scanning, listening. Is that a siren?
I start walking to the living room door.
“Ima,” my daughter calls out. “Come!”
“A rocket?” I call out as I begin to move towards the steps.
“Yes, come!”.
“Abba?” I call out to her asking where her father is, if he knows.
“I’m here,” he calls out.
My daughter is the first to enter our bomb shelter; I am the second. I turn, “close the door”, I needlessly tell my husband, as I hear the heavy bar come down.
My daughter sits on the floor and begins scrolling through her phone. My husband and I take the chairs. There is water, some food. No matter. No one wants to eat or drink. My mind is racing.
“Eli’s in the bomb shelter,” my daughter says before I can ask. “Shmuli said Lavi was in the shower, but they took him in a towel. They’re fine.”
Amira…my daughter answers, the older of the twins is very upset, the rest are calm.
We hear booms above us, but faint so most likely not directly over head.
My third son is in Ariel. “No siren there,” my daughter tells me.
I write to my sister and brother while my mind keeps saying how insane this is. Madmen from Yemen are angry so they fire ballistic missiles at half of Israel’s population?
That was last week. Friday night, again we heard sirens. This time it is Shabbat and so no phones, no calls. We hear a siren in the distance but not over our heads. Again we go to the living door. We decide the siren is over Jerusalem, not here. Another night.
And this morning, not at 4:00 a.m. as they did last week, this time, intended to disrupt and terrify, they fired at Tel Aviv at 7:23. Tel Aviv – south, east. Ramat Gan, Rishon LeZion, Petach Tikvah, Modiin, Kfar Saba, Netanya wet and east, Latrun…so many other places…
If you are not in Israel, turn up the speakers on your phone or computer and play this video. Warning – you can hear the siren…an automatic way to terrify anyone here in Israel.
