Is this a drill?

May 27, 2009 - 1:54 PM by Nicky · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, War

I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried by the government’s decision to hold a large-scale nationwide drill next Tuesday. Relieved, because the government is clearly preparing us all for missile attacks, which is very responsible and forward thinking; and worried, well because the government is clearly preparing us all for missile attacks.

Sound the alarm and make for a shelter

With the war of words between Israel and Iran heating up, it’s hard not to feel a little jumpy even when you’re an optimistic sort.

The government’s idea is to hold a nationwide civil defense exercise, called Turning Point 3 (I presume we’ve already had Turning Point 1 and 2). During the exercise sirens will go off across the country. And this time, instead of ignoring them, the entire population will have to head for the nearest shelter or protected site.

For my kids it’s a trip to a rather dank and smelly underground shelter at the school. For my husband it’s going to be interesting since the shelters in his high-rise office block are rented out for storage. For me, well with no one around to notice, it’s probably not worth making the effort to amble down the stairs to my son’s bedroom cum shelter. Even though it’s got wireless Internet.

In a meeting at the Knesset, Dep. Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said the exercise was based on the presumption of a missile assault from three or four directions, some with unconventional weapons, synchronized with large-scale terrorist attacks up and down the country.

This, he stressed, was no fantastic scenario made up by Hollywood scriptwriters, but a highly credible development in the event of war. I can’t help but wonder what drill they have planned for us in the event of a nuclear strike.

My village started preparing for the drill last week, when the sirens suddenly went off early in the morning. No one seemed particularly concerned, however, and just went about their business as normal. Finally someone raised their head and said: “Do you think that’s a drill?”

Anyway, good to know we’re prepared. Gas masks to be handed out later this year. Ah, the good life.

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Tags: civil defense, drill, gas masks, missile, shelter, siren, turning point 3, War

RepORTs from the teens

January 9, 2009 - 12:32 PM by Harry · 2 Comments
Filed under: General

Ashkelon A network of high schools across Israel that emphasizes high-tech vocational training, ORT is an educational powerhouse, its 100,000-strong student body representing about one tenth of all Israeli high school students.

With six branches within rocket range in southern Israel, ORT estimates that 7000 of its pupils are currently under high risk of Hamas attacks.

ORT’s Ronson School in Ashkelon, which educates some 1800 students, has temporarily closed its doors due to this situation, necessitating special tutoring and commuting arrangements so that the 12th graders don’t fall too far behind.

In the meantime, the school’s Eye 2 Israel / Yama and student blogging (informational site in Hebrew only) projects have encouraged students to use their tech bent to help foment a positive image of Israelis in the blogosphere – a motivation close to Israelity’s heart.

One of their bloggers, 14-year-old Rebeca Mayer, is an immigrant from Cuba. Although her English isn’t the most polished, Mayer’s accounts of her day-to-day life are a poignant reminder that there are real people behind every headline. As she puts it in her blog, “I decided to open this blog so all of you out there will understand what we’re going threw here in Ashkelon.”

Writing from inside a bomb shelter, where she and her family have been spending lots of time lately, Mayer wrote on December 28:

I’m really board here cause there’s nothing to do, my little bro is playing with my grandma with a train.

….I wanted to go out today and buy some shoes, but I guess this plan would have to wait, it really sucks to live in this kind of reality I just hope everything will be ok.

More recently, this past Tuesday, she wrote about her feelings of personal connection to the IDF soldiers who had recently been killed in combat in Gaza:

I feel so responsible for there death, cause I know they died to defend me.

They were supposed to come home as heroes but they come back in a coffin.

Now nothing could change, I just hope they will be happy up there in heaven.

As of yesterday, Mayer was planning on going to Eilat for the weekend for some escape and fun. We hope she finds what she’s looking for.

Image Ashkelon courtesy Jason Turner from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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Tags: ashkelon, blog, blogosphere, bomb shelter, Cuba, education, Gaza, hamas, hebrew, high school, IDF, Israel, ORT, Rebeca Mayer, ronson, shelter, south, student, tech, teen, yama

A new front in Lebanon?

January 8, 2009 - 1:38 PM by Nicky · 3 Comments
Filed under: Life, Politics, War, coexistence

I must admit, when I went to buy milk this morning and saw the TV in our tiny village makolet (corner shop), tuned to the news and a picture of the Lebanon and Israeli border, I felt a deep sense of foreboding.

I think it’s what we’ve all been frightened of. That the battle in the south, will lead to a new front in the north. As we are all aware, those four or five Katuysha missiles fired at Nahariya this morning, wounding two people, could be a one-off protest, or they could be the opening salvo of a much worse conflict.

A katyusha attack on Israel.

I’m one of those people living in the center of the country who have managed to be untouched by either the last Lebanon war, when missiles rained down on the north, or the Gaza crisis, when missiles rain down on the south. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard, however.

This morning I felt it acutely – a kind of moral and emotional exhaustion at the thought of what has been, and what is still to come – with Hizbullah, if not now (with elections in Lebanon in May), then later; and with Iran, looming.

I’m not alone. This morning Larry Rich, the director of development and PR at Emek Medical Center (EMC) in Afula, sent out one of his periodic postings. Every month or so, Rich sends out a report from his hospital, and I always read them with interest. Sometimes it’s about something he overhead, or witnessed at the hospital, often its heart-warming tales about Israeli Arabs and Jews who find that in the face of illness and sometimes death, they share an awful lot more in common than they thought.
This morning, Rich – like me – was in somber mood.

“Two hours ago four Katyusha missiles slammed into the northern Galilee, having been fired from southern Lebanon. It seems that the Iranian forces of darkness are eager to continue their relentless provocation of little Israel. Nobody knows, as these words are being written, just how far this latest act of unprovoked aggression will escalate.”

He goes on to report that EMC is now on high alert.

“An urgent meeting of our emergency preparedness staff led by CEO Dr. Orna Blondheim (still grieving from the tragic death of her nephew, Dagan Vertman, cut down in Gaza) took place as the debris in the Galilee was being cleared. Having unfortunate knowledge stemming from previous wars, EMC is preparing for the worst while hoping that sanity will prevail.
We have opened our bomb shelters and already designated a large shelter adjacent to several empty rooms that will be used (should we need it) by the children of our staff while they are working.

The rooms will be for games & activities while in the event of a missile assault, the children will be only steps away from a large bomb shelter. Our emergency medical supply stores are fully stocked and ready. Our physicians and nurses carry on with their healing, hoping that they will not be, once again, launched into harm’s way.

Adrenalin is rushing, anxiety sets in and we resign ourselves to an indefinite fate.”

A few days ago, the husband of a friend of mine volunteered for the reserves. He’s in his ’40s, and the father of four children. He was sent to the Lebanon border, where troops have been on alert since the start of the conflict with Gaza. “At least he’s miles from the fighting,” she told me then. I saw her briefly this morning. She looked worried.

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