Okay, it's official. A war is upon us. Israel has named it Operation Protective Edge. It was a tense day and a very hot evening. Let's have a rundown of today's events from my narrow perspective of the world...
Driving to work super early this morning was not fun. Constantly listening for sirens and constantly thinking about where to stop and where to run to, if need be. Yagel's mom suggested that we take pots to put on our heads if we got stuck outside. Hysterical as it is, she did this to Yagel during the last war, and when he got stuck outside during a siren, he put the pot on his head. I'm not sure if it was out of fear from the rockets or from fear of his mother - when she says put a pot on your head, you put a damn pot on your head!
We arrived all fine and dandy and started to work. We even put on music to lighten the mood. I swear that I heard a siren among the melodies, but everyone assured me that I had not. Suddenly, the rest of the workers who had been in a different part of the store came running by where we were saying there was a siren. It was super early in the morning, so no one was in the mall. We all stood in the bomb shelter (yes, every corner of the mall has one) and waited. I noticed that we even had a convenient portable toilet in the case that we might get stuck there. We waited and waited...and nothing happened. Finally, we figured out that there had not been a siren...we had all just imagined it within the music. That, my friends, can shed some light on just how jacked up your brain is in a time like this. You hear a siren in EVERYTHING. The wind blowing, paper rustling, anything sounds like a siren. My managers did have a good laugh watching us bolt for a false alarm over and over again on the store's cameras.
Our day continues, and we're all on edge for a siren during work hours with customers in the store. We all have our various duties - mine to close up the cash registers, another to close the gate of the store, another to start herding customers to the safe rooms. And finally, the time came. We heard the loud speakers in the mall announcing "Code Red, Code Red," and we jumped into action. That's an adrenaline rush I could do without again in my life, but I assume it will continue throughout this week, until it gets so bad that they close the mall. It also caused me to be hyper alert the rest of my shift...just waiting.
And we waited for quite awhile. Finished work. Went home for a short nap. Took the dog to the dog park. And as we were there, letting him run off his nervous energy, everyone started talking about the messages we all got - Hamas sent rockets to Tel Aviv. TA is the largest city in Israel, and her residents are not as seasoned at the whole run for cover as we Southerners are. I got an uneasy feeling and insisted we leave, as many others did. But, at this point in the story, I have to point out how desperately we all tried to continue behaving normally today. We went out of our houses. We went to work. We were outside. Sure, we may have had to run for cover, but we tried for normalcy.
Now we arrive at the hot part of our saga. About 7:30pm, we arrived at our safe haven, Yagel's parents' house, farther removed from the area close to Gaza (or so we thought). We rest, I'm glued to my phone, and finally Yagel convinces me to go swimming. It sounded amazing after the tense day and my super sore post-physical therapy muscles. And it was amazing. Then, Yagel's mom stuck her head out of the window and said that there were more rockets in Tel Aviv. Seriously? In the course of the last war, Hamas sent missiles to Tel Aviv twice. In the course of a couple of hours, the same thing happened! This is when it all started feeling very serious. We got out of the pool - I felt it coming. We took a shower. Yagel finished and said that the rockets continued falling...Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba, Herziliya. I was still in the shower when the terror arrived here. The whole family shrieked for me to get out of the shower as fast as possible. So, sopping wet and draped in two towels, I slipped my way into the bomb shelter and sat there in all my towel-covered glory with Yagel's family, just shaking and confused. And we learned that not only were there a ton of rockets in Be'er Sheva/Omer, rockets reached the center to Tel Aviv and even to Jerusalem. Five rockets to Jerusalem. Four booms we counted here. All in all, in about five minutes, 30 rockets pounded some of the largest communities in Israel, putting so many more people in the line of danger. You remember that naked feeling I described yesterday? I didn't think it was possible, but I feel even more naked now. This entire country is under attack. Nowhere is immune to this madness. I don't have the energy to get into the politics of it all now, but just know that I am in total shock. This vulnerable and exhausted feeling just won't go away. I hope I can sleep. I hope it will be quiet. But I'm also not naive enough to think that this will be the case.
Side note, it's so refreshing to see Israel take a break from the craziness and watch the World Cup. Everyone is freaking out about the Brazil vs. Germany game where Germany has made 5 goals in like 5 minutes. I was in shock...and we all took a deep breath and enjoyed ourselves a bit. It's those moments of normalcy that will surely keep us all going through what the government has said will be a long affair. If you're interested in getting a real time look at what we are experiencing here, I suggest checking out www.thetimesofisrael.com (they have a liveblog that continually updates with new developments) or www.ynetnews.com (click on their updates from the home page on the left hand side). If you're really masochistic, you can download the iPhone app, Red Alert, and get real time push notifications of every time there is a siren. I DO NOT recommend it, as it will send you over the edge. So, signing off for now. I do hope that the following days will be less eventful, but I highly doubt it.
Sending lots of love, and hopefully some peace.
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