Wednesday. Short entry, but there are a couple of things I want to say tonight. First, another soldier was buried today on Kibbutz Gazit where Greg is buried. Now there are six soldiers buried there; Greg was the fourth. I don't think I can convey to you how each soldier is precious to the Israelis -- it is so completely unlike anything that happens in America. In America you might see a squib in the NYTimes naming the soldiers who were killed during the week and I think they read the names on NPR. Here pictures of the soldiers and a brief biography is on the front page of every newspaper the morning after their deaths and details about their funerals are broadcast on the radio so that whoever wants to can go. Their pictures are shown on television with details about funerals. It is brought home to every Israeli the cost of this war in terms of lives -- Israeli lives and also Lebanese lives.
Today I had to go to the bank, but when I got there I found a note on the door saying that because they didn't have shelter in the bank, the bank was moved to Palm Tree Hall at the Dan Panorama Hotel. Palm Tree Hall turned out to be a room about the size of a good-sized living room. Tables had been set up around the room with about a dozen computers, and tellers sat behind the computers while people waited in line in the middle of the room. In the middle of everything there were sirens (amplified on special speakers so that you could hear them in that windowless room) and no one moved. But when there was a second round of sirens everyone made for the shelter down in the basement of the hotel. There were four warning sirens today, but as far as I know, no rockets fell in Haifa.
But those poor people further north. On the radio they announce where sirens are sounding, and in Safed, for example, or Kyriat Shmona, it is every 10 minutes throughout the day with no let-up! Today they bussed lots and lots of people from K. Shmona to the south for a couple of days respite at hotels, paid for by the municipality. It's been 29 days now -- people who have had to live in bomb shelters all this time are really suffering....
It's hard to see tonight where this is going. The Israeli security cabinet has ok'd an expansion of the war, but apparently this doesn't mean that it will happen right away. Various cease-fire proposals have been presented and rejected. Tomorrow the UN Security Council is supposed to vote but I think I heard that this might not happen either. Israel is still pretty united around wanting to go "all the way and wipe them out." I don't see that this is possible, personally, and I shudder to think of the bloodshed and chaos that will follow. We'll see.
Love,
Pat
Today I had to go to the bank, but when I got there I found a note on the door saying that because they didn't have shelter in the bank, the bank was moved to Palm Tree Hall at the Dan Panorama Hotel. Palm Tree Hall turned out to be a room about the size of a good-sized living room. Tables had been set up around the room with about a dozen computers, and tellers sat behind the computers while people waited in line in the middle of the room. In the middle of everything there were sirens (amplified on special speakers so that you could hear them in that windowless room) and no one moved. But when there was a second round of sirens everyone made for the shelter down in the basement of the hotel. There were four warning sirens today, but as far as I know, no rockets fell in Haifa.
But those poor people further north. On the radio they announce where sirens are sounding, and in Safed, for example, or Kyriat Shmona, it is every 10 minutes throughout the day with no let-up! Today they bussed lots and lots of people from K. Shmona to the south for a couple of days respite at hotels, paid for by the municipality. It's been 29 days now -- people who have had to live in bomb shelters all this time are really suffering....
It's hard to see tonight where this is going. The Israeli security cabinet has ok'd an expansion of the war, but apparently this doesn't mean that it will happen right away. Various cease-fire proposals have been presented and rejected. Tomorrow the UN Security Council is supposed to vote but I think I heard that this might not happen either. Israel is still pretty united around wanting to go "all the way and wipe them out." I don't see that this is possible, personally, and I shudder to think of the bloodshed and chaos that will follow. We'll see.
Love,
Pat
posted by Frank and Pat Fischer at 11:32 PM
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