We are at war again. I remember being pregnant in 2006 with my second son during the second Lebanon War and thinking about all of the Israeli pregnant women who were sitting in shelters as bombs exploded around them. Now I am thinking of the people who are afraid to walk outside with their children because they will not be able to run back into the shelter as soon as the siren blares; there are only 15 seconds between the time a siren is sounded and the time it takes for the Palestinian Kassam rockets to hit their targets. Rabbis, volunteers and others are bravely facing rocket fire in order to deliver food, clothing and medicines to those who are shut in.
People of all ages are trapped and hopefully they will be out soon, but at the same time, I want the government to finish its task of rooting out terrorists and putting them out of operation. At the same time, I sincerely hope that innocent Arabs are not harmed in the process. Unfortunately, many of the children in that region are trained early to be suicide bombers. It is hard to know who is innocent and who is not. I believe the Israeli government that the strikes are as “surgical” as possible and intended only to dismantle those who want to do us harm. It is always a tragedy when innocent people are harmed in the process, but I believe the Israelis are trying to minimize the damage. Perhaps that is the reason the government waited so long to do this; they wanted to make sure their targets were precise.
There are many miracles in this conflict, as with many conflicts in Eretz Yisroel. A rocket hit a school in Beer Sheva, but no students were inside. Yesterday, in Ashdod, a rocket destroyed the upper two floors of a building. By a sheer miracle, no one was on those two floors, but everyone was on the lower floors. The Chabad emissaries in Sderot, Chananel and Tzivia Pizem were spared when there was a complete destruction of their home. Tzivia took the children to Kfar Chabad that day when the rocket hit and Chananel was out helping war victims.
I am hoping and praying that Hashem will continue to do miracles for us and all of the good people in the world who truly want lasting peace