It’s never just traffic

December 27, 2009 - 12:19 PM by Jessica

About ten days ago, we had just arrived back in Israel and were driving to Netanya, for a family Chanukah party being hosted by my oldest, married niece. What should have been an hour and a half-long drive (okay, maybe an hour and 45 minutes) ended up taking more than two and a half hours. The delays were everywhere, on Route 443, which spans from Jerusalem to Modi’in and beyond, and on Highway Six, Israel’s only toll road and what is usually an impeccable stretch of highway.

At the time, we couldn’t figure out what was causing the delay. We figured it was because of the rainy, windy weather that made the roads slick and was probably causing more than a few accidents. It was also the second-to-last night of Chanukah, and people were probably heading out for their final celebrations, like us.

We finally made it to Netanya and my niece’s residential suburb, while my sister and her family never got past the checkpoint on 443. They — and many other drivers — were turned back toward Ramot and Jerusalem, and when they found themselves at the entrance to the city at 7:30 — the time that we were supposed to be lighting candles at the party — they gave up and headed home.

But it was only this week that we found out what was the cause of all the traffic. Turns out that someone was trying to blow up motorists on the road on that very afternoon. The firecrackers attached to the bomb went off, but the bomb didn’t. Lucky us. Another Israeli wasn’t as lucky, and was killed in a shooting attack while driving home.

One of my nephews, in the other car, wondered out loud what would have happened if the bomb had gone off and we were all on the road. His question was first greeted with silence, as they all pondered that one. Makes you kind of wish that it had ‘just’ been a traffic accident.

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