Yesterday (Saturday, 7 Oct 2023), my wife woke me at about 6:30 am -
"Wake up, there are booms outside" [booms in this context is the sound and
pressure wave of a missile falling to the ground]. We turned on the
television and saw the unpleasant and automatic messages from the Home
Guard, showing where missiles were falling and where inhabitants had to get
to air raid shelters or their internal security room. At first the locations
were only settlements near the Gaza border, but slowly more and more targets
appeared, further and further away from the border. As our bedroom doubles
as the security room, we stayed where we were, but I closed the steel
shutters to the window.
We saw that the locations were getting closer and closer to where we live
and eventually the local sirens went off. At the same time, the list of
locations included Jerusalem, a location that one would not expect to be
targeted (what would happen should a missile fall on East Jerusalem, or
worse, on one of the holy sites?). I have no idea of how much damage the
1,500 rockets fired at Israel caused, although I suspect that it was
relatively little and that the barrage was more like covering fire.
By this time, the television news company had got its act together and had
started broadcasting properly with correspondents situated at various
locations. It was then that we heard that the enemy had overrun and occupied
at least two kibbutzim near the border. The residents - my spiritual
brothers and sisters - were all sitting tight in their security rooms, but
this was an event that had not occurred since 1948 when a few kibbutzim were
similarly overrun during the war of independence. There were some
heartbreaking conversations between the television anchor and frightened
kibbutz members hiding in their houses and playing possum. Each kibbutz has
a primary reaction force composed of members, and these were trying to
engage the enemy, with varying degress of success.
At the same time, filtering in were the first reports about an outdoor
festival (what the British would call a rave) that inexplicably had been
situated in the same general area. The enemy had arrived at this site and
were shooting people; the festival participants had all run away, trying to
get away from the enemy and in the hope of finding some shelter. Some
survived, some were killed and some were taken prisoner.
Videos (filmed by the enemy) began to be shown of how they managed to
breach the border wall, how they were strutting down the streets of Sderot
and Ofakim (towns situated about 30 km from the border) and most painful of
all, a Palestinian news reporter giving a summary whilst standing in a
kibbutz; behind him could be seen enemies looting houses and storage areas,
taking anything that came to hand.
All this time, more and more missiles were raining down on the south of
Israel. The number of deaths began to rise and rise - 10 dead, 20 dead, 50
dead, 100 dead - along with an even greater number of injured people. One
number that was never shown, primarily because of its negative affect on
morale but also because it was simply unknown, was the number of prisoners -
both soldiers and civilians - taken.
By nightfall, the situation had changed somewhat. There were very few
rocket launches after about 4pm, but at 8pm - primary news time - again a
huge barrage was fired, causing damage in cities around Tel Aviv. The air
force had got its act together and was shooting at enemies trying to return
to the Gaza strip along with the more familiar site of tall buildings (that
house enemy headquarters) in Gaza being destroyed. Reserves had been called
up and deployed at various locations, trying to free hostages and remove
enemy forces.
Inevitably comparisons have been made between now and 50 years ago, the Yom
Kippur war. Staring us in the face is the complete surprise and lack of
intelligence; as the commentators say, this concerted and coordinated attack
must have been planned and rehearsed for months, if not years, yet Israel
"was caught with her trousers down". On the other hand, there is no
comparison at all: then the battlefields were nowhere near civilian
locations (especially in the south), and whilst some settlements were
threatened on the northern front, the civilian population was never at risk.
Yesterday the battlefields were kibbutzim and towns, with rockets raining
down on the civilian population.
In the late afternoon, we heard about approaches made by the leaders of the
two major opposition parties in the Knesset to join forces with the Likud
party and form a time limited emergency government that could make rational
and professional decisions about running this war. One leader indicated that
the more extreme members of the government would have to leave (mentioning
no names but we all know who he was talking about) whereas the other did not
mention this. All other legislation would be put aside for the time being.
Netanyahu cannot refuse.
The colossal damage that extremist politicans have caused in the past nine
months may have given our enemies the impression that Israel has been torn
apart by internal forces and that she is weaker, but in times of war, we are
all united.
It is now 7:52 am on Sunday morning, 8 Oct 2023. I have just received a
much-copied WhatsApp message saying that General No'am Tibon [a son
of Tzora - NN]
aged 62, an anarchist who demonstrates every weekend in Tel Aviv, drove
from Tel Aviv in order to rescue his grandchildren who have been hiding
without movement for 10 hours in Kibbutz Nahal Oz
[a border kibbutz].
On his way, he picked up four soldiers, formed a squad, then staged a
battle with five terrorists who were in the home
[presumably where his grandchildren were].
He freed the children then drove home. A privileged person. [A
fuller and more accurate version of this story, albeit in Hebrew, can be
found
here.]
This last sentence is extremely sarcastic as one of the epithets hurled at
the opponents of the destruction of the judicial system is "Privileged
person" - those who had life easy by growing up in a kibbutz and having
doors opened for them in later life because they are white and educated...
and ignoring the fact that almost all such privileged people served in the
army and many reached high ranks. These are the true patriots.
