Never thought I would be scared

I’m not sure how to begin to describe what the past 24 hours has been like for me. My mom wanted to go back to Metulla yesterday and trying to talk her out of it didn’t work. It’s only been 4 days since we left Metulla yet she already felt the urge to go back. Our pets are a huge concern and also it’s so hard to leave the town you live in and grew up in. I wasn’t going to let my mom go alone so we drove together.
We decided to stop at a kibutz half an hour south of Metulla and wait there until it gets dark before we make the final part of the trip. The statistic shows that there is hardly any shelling at night.
There is such a huge difference between northern Israel and the center of Israel. It almost feels like two different countries. From nonstop explosions into beaches, shopping and caf?s.
The snap into the reality of the war took no time, as soon as we got to the north you could feel the stress again. I have never seen so much army in my whole life, all over. This is war and there is no doubt about it.
The cannons were firing in Metulla and the sound was unbearable. I took a shower while hoping there won’t be an alarm in the middle. Towards 2am I finally went to bed. I fell asleep. And then I woke up. At 3am. At 4am. At 5:30am. At 7am. How can you really sleep with explosions all around you? I was lying in bed praying that it would stop already. Around 7:30am a siren went off, along with the beeper saying that we should go into bomb shelters. Not long after the first Katyushas fell. They fell close enough to hear and far enough to still be safe. The next round wasn’t so far.
I heard a terrifying whistle and then a huge explosion, stronger than anything I’ve heard before. I’m not sure why but I decided to step outside and ask my neighbor whether it was ‘ours’ or ‘theirs’… he wasn’t sure. The two others explosions along with the loud siren and smoke that followed left no room for wondering. It wasn’t ours and it definitely fell near by. One of the Katyushas fell 200 feet from my house. Another one hit a house of one family in Metulla. A few other ones fell in the near by orchards.
I was running between my house, the street and the “safer room” of the house. In case you didn’t know, every house in Israel must be built with a “safe room” that is supposed to protect the family somewhat better from a missile attack, only in Israel.
I was grateful for my good fortune, if that Katyusha hit 200 feet from that spot, it would have been my house being hit. What a horrible feeling this is.
I spent the rest of the day in Metulla’s ‘operation room’ or ‘war headquarters’. I was doing a simple secretarial work of picking phones and giving the worried residents instructions on what to do and helping to organize a list of kids that are leaving for camp away from Metulla.

There were nonstop reports about the house that collapsed in the village of Kana, with reports on 57 dead (Red cross numbers are lower) amongst them 20 children. It is truly awful when innocent civilians die, but it is unfortunately inevitable when Hezbollah exploits its own country’s civilians and uses their houses for hiding weapons and missiles. It is up to Lebanon and its civilians to say no to such horrible use of civilians by putting them in the front line. The Israeli army asked the residents of southern Lebanon to leave 2 weeks ago because they had no choice but to bomb villages who are used to hide weapon.
The first thing that Israel did after hearing of the civilians that died was to remorse. I never once heard Hezbollah or Lebanon expressing any kind of regret for Israeli civilians that lost their lives.
The hypocrisy of the world makes me so mad. Especially Kofi Anan who once again ignores Israeli casualties, injured and the 2 million Israelis who are living in bomb shelters or as refugees.
I must admit I was absolutely scared today. Hoping for a night where I can sleep more than an hour straight… Layla tov.

* The beatiful view of the north, as always...