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Something a bit different today, a few reflections on life in Israel during war.
It’s personal, it’s raw.
Enjoy.
Yes, the usual daily brief is pasted after.
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How It Feels To Be in Israel Right Now
I spoke today with someone who reads all my posts and really wanted to talk.
Someone in HR from Boston, who’s Jewish.
Talking with her gave me the itch to write down some thoughts.
Writing about war is tough.
Living through war is tougher.
Not that I ever thought about living through war.
Sure, I remember 9/11 and the wars after.
The Cold War, as well, needless to say.
But I could never really say in earnest that I lived through a war.
On 9/11, I was a sophomore in college.
The wars were fought far away, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I remember the Second Intifada well, also.
Seeing the endless suicide bombings on the news from afar, it was absolutely horrible.
But it was over there.
Now, of course, I live in over there.
The enemy isn’t some caricature of Islamists in Toyota trucks with Kalashnikovs and green bandanas.
It’s the real f*cking thing.
And then there are the guys up north, same shit, but even much larger, better trained and funded, with 50 times more rockets.
And we’re all of a negligible 34 km from the Lebanese border, 21 miles.
42 minutes drive if I get in the car now.
F***ck.
The IDF has already evacuated the 0-2 km buffer zone, now evacuating people from 2-5 km from the border.
If you recall, I once (last year, I believe) wrote about going hiking with my daughter all of 1 km from the border, within easy view from Hezbollah outlook posts, and feeling the fear of simply being so close.
They had the monument to the three kidnapped soldiers in that park, too.
Well, here we are.
We’ve got plenty of unity in Israel now, thank G-d.
That’s our greatest weapon, without a shred of sarcasm.
We’ve got close to 600,000 reservists in uniform now, training and waiting for deployment, guarding cities and towns and villages and strategic installations.
We have drones above us practically all day.
Some days, jets fly up and down constantly.
Some days, not as much.
We’ve already gone through our first (false) alarm, last week.
We scrambled like newbies to my brother-in-law’s place, since they have a better safe room (mamad), since our own bomb shelter (miklat) proved inadequately small and overcrowded.
We packed a ton of food by the door that we can take with us at a moment’s notice.
We packed a bag with clothes and toiletries we can run with, within a minute of a siren starting.
Right when that alarm went off, I actually was on the way to getting my Mom from the grocery store.
I insticntively felt that there would be an alarm soon, called her and got her right as it started.
Like a total rookie (clueless idiot), I drove like a madman to her place.
The driver ahead stopped in the road and made to the side to take the correct position.
We all honked in impatience.
Total shitshow.
Last Shabbat, we spent a very bad night expecting more alarms and rockets.
We kept our phones with rabbinic permission and encouragement, simply because it could really save our lives.
I barely slept, with the light on (Shabbat) and the radio tuned to some totally secular channel, with war updates.
The synagogue I went to was guarded at the entrances by men with guns (our people, who rotated between prayer and guard duty).
We were fully expecting local Arabs to make trouble, if not worse.
On Yom Kippur, there was a column of Arabs on bikes that stormed through my neighborhood while kids and adults were out in droves in the street (all streets are closed off for Yom Kippur in Israel, that’s the day to bike around anywhere without interruption, if you’re a kid or adult).
Thankfully, nothing materialized.
It turned out to be a rather safe and calm Shabbat, thankfully.
Things swam up as I went through this week.
For example, we built our own sukkah this year and spent a truly incredible Sukkot holiday.
On the last day of Sukkot, the day before the October 7th attack in the morning, I found a dead bird in our sukkah, probably dragged there by one of the neighborhood cats.
It’s always an ominous sign, if your mind goes there.
Mine did, but I talked myself out of it.
And then next day…
Anyways, everyone’s asking if we’re ok and safe and all.
What do you say?
Yeah, we’re ok, but there was a genocide two hours south, so no, we’re NOT FUCKING OK, OK?!
Every family, including ours, knows people whose family is dead, people whose family was kidnapped into Gaza.
My brother-in-law was called to guard a settlement near Hebron.
My half-sister is guarding some Jewish village somewhere, according to her FB post.
My cousin is in the reserves doing some translation work and something else.
There’s a neighborhood guard organized by the Russian guys in my shul.
A close friend is collecting money to buy bulletproof vests and making tzitzit (fringes that Jewish men are obligated to wear; even many secular soldiers have been demanding them as a spiritual protection from harm).
We’re waiting for a ground invasion, but clearly, the IDF wants to retain an element of surprise and to bulk up with American ammo and threats to eliminate Hezbollah.
Iran has massed tens of thousands of troops in Syria, with clear intentions.
Rockets are still flying every day into the center of the country, where a few of my best friends have kids traumatized by the constant sirens and running to the shelter below the building.
F*cking islamo-nazi pieces of sh*t.
We will destroy them and we will win.
We don’t know exactly how G-d’s hand will play on this chessboard.
Our Army is ready to strike heavy blows.
Our Air Force is bombing the sh*t out of Hamas’s terror infrastructure, but we know that’s nowhere near enough to destroy them and their tunnels.
We sit on a knife’s edge, my friends, between calm and absolute chaos, between an Israel-Hamas war and full-blown regional war and really, truly WWIII.
It’s no longer a cute euphemism or distant possibility.
We’re right in the middle.
Felling positively f*cking historical right now.
The days are beyond exhausting.
I wake up before 7, repost from the death carousel that is FB, with a couple positive things thrown in.
I head to work on a bus, pray at the campus synagogue, then create some social media posts for the day, interview people for how they’re helping the front line and home front.
I keep posting and reposting on my own channels on FB and LinkedIN.
I get in some writing here and there, as much as I can.
After work, I start on the daily brief between time with kids and dinner.
Then, more work on the brief, this newsletter.
The nights have been far too short for sleep this week.
I just collapsed when we got home for 40 minutes of sleep.
Averaging 5 hours a night this week.
Social media seems like a small and shitty waste of time when one reads of the dark details of the atrocities.
I can’t serve in the reserves, because I was never a soldier.
I can’t even get a gun license, because I’m not eligible yet and it’s a very long and difficult process.
All of us immigrants at a later age feel the same.
We pray, we box up and deliver food, we share pro-Israel posts on social media, go about our day trying not to be all gloom and doom for the kids.
We shield them a lot.
They’re home on Zoom most of the day or otherwise watching some crap, a movie later in the day.
Much like COVID, but with a much bigger and darker shadow.
Rainy season is starting. I wore a sweater for the first time today since early spring.
My wife got me from work and we went shopping at Carrefour in what was a most welcome “normal” gesture.
These two weeks have thrown our sleep schedule, the kids’ schooling and much of everything else.
We’re quite lucky not to have the sirens all the time (at least yet).
We’re lucky to be alive and healthy.
We’re lucky to be with our own people, in our own land, dependent basically on ourselves.
Of course, a huge thanks to Uncle Sam and Uncle Jack (UK) and all the support.
But in the end, it’s all on us Israelis to get through this, to defeat Hamas and Hezballah and earn the right to live without fear again, to rebuild our communities and families from an unspeakable horror.
Did I mention that 10/7 was like 10 9/11s inflicted on Israel, proportionally?
Did I mention that these subhuman islamo-nazi motherf*ckers burned, mutilated, tortured, raped and otherwise violated 80% of the Israelis they killed?
Did I mention they killed entire families, torturing children and babies and Holocaust survivors and disabled children and adults before dismembering and shooting them and burning them?
Did I mention the 200+ kidnapped (40 babies, 20 elderly, entire families) without any Red Cross visit?
Did I mention that hundreds of beautiful young Jewish souls were wiped out at a peace music festival?
Did I mention that these f*ckers planned this massacre for years in advance with truly mind-blowing specificity?
Did I mention that this was the worst terror attack in recorded history, proportionally?
Did I mention the deafening silence from allies and most non-Jewish friends?
The islamo-nazi sympathizers in the hundreds of thousands openly, gleefully celebrating the death of Jewish babies and Holocaust survivors and raped women, in many world capitals?
I’m f*cking angry as hell.
Anger preserves us from crumbling into fear.
I want a gun. I want to go kill some Hamas or Hezballah right now.
But it’s not happening.
I’m taking soldiers food for Shabbat tomorrow.
Doing this, writing more daily briefs.
Trying my best to do my part of communicating what’s going on.
So, there you have it.
Living in Israel in wartime.
Pray, do a good deed, light Shabbat candles, put on tefillin.
Spread the message of what’s going on here.
Don’t let the liars and murderers have their way with us online, too.
Sending love from Haifa, amigos.
Stay safe.
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Daily Brief
Dear Friends,
Israel Media Room is a group of concerned Israeli media professionals curating a selection of relevant, fact-checked news and commentary about the current situation in Israel and the ongoing war against Hamas terrorist organization. We refuse to spread clickbait, feed into the general panic and give any platform to propaganda or misinformation. We carefully choose our sources, verify the data, and present it in accessible formats.
Each day we are sending out a daily news digest so that you can keep abreast of the latest information and news analysis.
By the numbers:
Daily Brief (October 19, 2023)
The IDF called out foreign media outlets for publishing unverified information about the Gaza hospital explosion. A full incident overview is provided here.
Iran called on Islamic and Arab countries to sever diplomatic relations with Israel and introduce sanctions against the country
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel for a solidarity visit; governor of New York Kathy Hochul visited the ruins of Kfar Aza in the aftermath of Hamas terror attack.
Around 300,000 Israelis are believed to have been internally displaced since the start of the war with Hamas in Gaza, according to Israel Democracy Institute researchers.
Military Update
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops on the border with the Gaza Strip that the order to enter the Hamas-run territory will come soon. IDF Southern Command chief says ground operation will be ‘long and intense’.
All below from here, rewrite for an easier read plz:
More rockets were fired toward the South, Center and in the North. The majority of residents from between 0-2 km from the Lebanese border have been moved into state-funded guesthouses. The Ministry of Defense was authorized to expand the evacuation up to 5 km from the border. After the continued missiles, the IDF kept striking Hezbollah intelligence and ops posts along the border.
More casualties from the October 7th attack have been identified and 306 families have been told about loved ones fallen in action.
Hamas terrorists may have been on drugs (specifically, captagon, a highly addictive synthetic used by ISIS in the past for alertness and to suppress emotions) during the attack, reports Israeli N12. It was found in some of the dead attackers’ clothing.
Hostage Situation
203 families have been informed, to date, that their loved ones were kidnapped by the terrorists. The IDF reported 30 of them to be children and 20 elderly.
For over a week, 12-year-old Noya Dan’s family hoped she was alive, taken hostage by Hamas. Her picture in Harry Potter-inspired costume prompted a response from author J.K. Rowling, who retweeted a post about her gone missing. Yesterday, her body was found near the border fence with Gaza, together with the body of her grandmother Carmela Dan, who suffered from dementia. Noya’s uncle and two of his children are still counted among the missing, possibly taken into Gaza.
Hatred Knows No Bounds
The historic el-Hamma synagogue was burnt down in Tunisia yesterday. The synagogue was dated back to the 16th century and contained the grave of the famous Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Ma’aravi. Hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to it following the failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile launch that landed next to the Gaza hospital.
Israel evacuated staff in 5 countries and temporarily shut down embassies in 20 others.
! Major trigger warning: Zaka first responders who’ve been working round the clock to recover remains of the victims of Oct 7 Hamas massacre shared their experiences from the field.
A new digital project titled October 7 collected eyewitness stories gathered from survivors of the Hamas massacre. It “stands as a testament to the unwavering spirit of survivors who bear witness to the unspeakable terrors”. Reader discretion advised - many of the stories are very graphic.
A letter from 2,000 actors and musicians slammed for accusing Israel of ‘war crimes’ while ignoring Hamas terrorist slaughter.
World Support
Columbia university business school professor Shai Davidai gave an impassioned speech blasting the presidents of Columbia, Stanford, Harvard for not speaking out against pro-Hamas university movements.
Prof. Gi Katz and pilot Tim Velsko drew Stars of David over Canadian and German skies
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived in Israel for a solidarity visit; governor of New York Kathy Hochul visited the ruins of Kfar Aza in the aftermath of Hamas terror attack.
On the Bright Side
Approximately 205,000 Israelis returned to the country between 7 and 18 October. Many arrived to enlist in the military from the reserve.
"For every fallen soldier, for every murdered civilian, let’s put together a new innovative startup," says entrepreneur Izhar Shay, whose son was killed by Hamas.
Israelis are offering fully stocked apartments in Tel-Aviv, as well as apartments in Jerusalem and elsewhere for evacuees. If you or someone you know needs, reach out to us directly. Editor(at)israelmediaroom(dot)com
A little something from the editors
Who would’ve thought that in 2023, warfare would spill over into the digital realm? The Iranian embassy in Syria tweeted “Time is up” in Hebrew yesterday. To which the Israeli embassy in the U.S. replied with an animated image of Neo from the Matrix series making his famous “come hither” motion. And yes, we are dead serious. You can’t make this stuff up.
How You Can Help
LOOKING FOR EQUIPMENT… campaign to purchase equipment for the emergency squads in the settlements.
Beit Lechem Yehuda organization has repurposed its logistic center in order to supply essential products and food products for the families who fled from the Kibutzim in the south and our heroic soldiers who are fighting in the south and in the north. Visit link or email bly (at) bly(dot)org(dot)il .
How Jewish parents can help their children with a flood of pain on social media.
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Have a great rest of the week,
Editors of The Israel Media Room
Important note:
We are an all-volunteer army spending many hours each day to keep you informed.
Important note 2:
This war is quickly progressing. New information is coming at an intense speed. We recommend checking official Israeli media sources for the most up-to-date and reliable information.
