Clouds of war gather in Israeli skies
WITH MORE than 1,200 rockets fired from Gaza, bloodshed in Jerusalem and a “pogrom” near Tel Aviv, Israel is being rocked by violence.
It has been a week of firsts: the first major round of Gaza projectiles in two years, the first significant Jerusalem violence in a similar timeframe and the first time that mixed JewishArab cities have erupted with such a level of confrontation in two decades.
The rocket barrages have targeted the area near the Gaza border and cities far further afield, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Millions of Israelis have spent time in bomb shelters.
The nation has much experience of mourning for people killed close to the Gaza border, but this time rockets are striking faraway areas. As the JC went to press, the rockets had caused six deaths, including one woman who was killed in Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv.
In Lod, where both of the two rocket fatalities were Arab — Halil Awad, 52, and daughter, Nadine, 16 — the mayor, Yair Revivio, said: “Hamas missiles do not differentiate between Jews and Arabs.”
The Israel Defence Forces said that its retaliation against terror targets in Gaza had been highly effective and accurate. But Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claimed that at least 49 people had been killed there. Israel countered that around half of those killed were terrorists and that Hamas was to blame for the death of Gazan civilians because it initiated violence and chose to base terror infrastructure in civilian areas.
Israeli authorities announced that the Gaza dead included senior members of Hamas’ leadership forum, including Bassen Issa, Gaza City Brigade commander who was in charge of improving Hamas’s missiles and the head of its production network. “The blood of whoever attacks us is on his head,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
We watched her get married overlooking the hills of Jerusalem and we sang, “Again will be heard in the cities of Judah and the crossroads of Jerusalem, the voice of joy, the voice of happiness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride,” that prophecy from Jeremiah that promised our return to Zion.
And we sang, “If I forget you O Jerusalem let my right hand forget its cunning”, as in every Jewish wedding.
For so long, we have longed to return. And yet while we are here it is not just the sound of joy and happiness we hear. We have no psalm to tell us how to fix this and no prophecy that promises we will.
We are back. But we are not all right. Our cities are burning and we must take responsibility. We must resolve the issues we can and have the resolve to do what we must with those we cannot.
I do not have all the answers. I only know that we must find them soon.
I do not think we can go on this way for much longer.