the booms..

this is the stage i hate the most of our wars.. the stage where our guys go in by foot. i painfully watched the news as the shared video footage of the (mere) fence between gaza and israel giving way to an inpouring army and stared in dread as i imagined my friends crossing that damned line - deluding myself that i might know how they felt..

every war - each time this happens the news services go stupid.. gradually the casualty reports start to come through and you dont know whats better to pray (despite being secular) for the well being and safety of those you know are over there or simply to deny that its happening..

last night we joined friends for a friday night dinner at their house outside of telaviv.. we havent heard sirens they promised.. sure enough neither did we while over there but we heard booms every few minutes.. their daughter wakes up from siren related nightmares and so the code was not to mention the war in hebrew.. so we did our best not to.. but every time an explosion took place our facial expressions couldnt shut up..

we hadnt driven anywhere with the girls since the conflict escalated and so to overcome the concern of having to pull over while driving on the highway with two babies - we equipped ourselves with an unpacked rubber-lined play mat - that we thought we could use either to insulate the girls from the burning hot road if we had to lay them down and shield them with our bodies or alternatively we could use to wrap them and defend them from glass and shrapnel if those were perceived to be the bigger risk..

as we drove over there we spoke several times about how we would sequence our actions to minimise any deer in the headlight affect if a siren was sounded..

sometimes it feels ridiculous thinking things out so much.. i am almost embarrassed by it.. given that people in gaza are simply dying quasi-impromptu.. but maybe we owe some of our survival to our over-thinking.. maybe the attention we give our risks is what saves us.. maybe its what produced the iron dome system..

whatever it is.. i wish we didnt need it..

in any event - however many booms we hear now - there are many more to come.. the media never seems to tell the truth about anything during our wars.. lightly wounded almost always turns into lost a hand and moderately wounded people often die.. and the same goes on with the gazans.. they reports inflated numbers of deaths while the israeli media seems to underplay the civilian losses on the palestinian side..

basically - we are subjected to gross media manipulation by each side to enlist our support for their heaviliy political affliction of pain on all civilians..

so many forms of wrong all in one conflict..