An Israeli soldiers attending a training simulation of the ground war in Gaza, at a training base near Mount Hebron, Shabbat, November 17, 2012.
It’s been a tense Shabbat, up here, outside the range of the Hamas rockets. Although, supposedly, two rockets fell in Rammat HaSharon, well north of Tel Aviv and only about ten miles from Netanya.
Friday night we listened to the F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers flying over Netanya on their way south.
Shabbat in Shul, when the Ba’al Tefila before Musaf got to the part about asking God to watch over the IDF, everybody was silent, and said a very loud Amen. Normally that’s the part where you catch a brief schmooze about this and that with the guy standing next to you.
Some of us in shul were suspiciously better informed than the rest about what was going on, because they’d left their radio or TV on. Makes sense. When your own flesh and blood are in it, you must know.
So far, other than 1000 sorties of the IAF, there has been only a volley of artillery fire on Gaza, and the Navy has been targeting specific addresses in Gaza. Otherwise, no ground war yet.