For "Vreme" from Israel
"There is no respite," reads the message from Tel Aviv. Despite all international warnings, appeals and threats that the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip is unacceptable and that the humanitarian disaster must stop, Israel does not reduce the intensity of military operations either from the sky or from the ground. Monday night was one of the deadliest since the start of the war on October 7, with Israeli armed forces targeting 450 targets, primarily in northern Gaza. The telecommunications system was down again. Reports are coming in that Israeli infantry have penetrated the coast and that a "cleansing" of Hamas is underway - sector by sector.
While in the devastated, densely populated Palestinian area, death from Israeli missiles takes its toll, parents carry dead or wounded children in their arms to the remaining, still whole, overcrowded hospitals that lack everything, while people dig through the rubble with their hands after airstrikes in search of survivors, corpses wrapped in white nylon until identified lie in the streets as morgues are full and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls Gaza a "children's graveyard," on the Israeli side of the border war looks very different.
APTOPIX Israel PalestiniansConsequences of an Israeli airstrike in front of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City / Photo: AP Photo/Abed Khaled
Over 120.000 residents in the south of the country, which has been declared a war zone, all settlements from Kibbutz Nir Oz, through Kisufim, Reim and Beeri to the city of Sderot and Netiv Haasar in the north of the border zone have been evacuated. Only individuals come occasionally to take care of livestock, where there are any.
Over 300.000 soldiers with all imaginable war machinery are deployed in this area. Apart from the army, you can also find reporters from all over the world and Israeli volunteers who come en masse to provide logistical assistance to their soldiers, bring and prepare food for them.
Cease fire is not an option
On this side of the war, the constant roar of Israeli artillery and muffled explosions from the direction of Gaza can be heard. In a month, the Israeli army targeted about 11.000 targets in this narrow territory, and since the ground troops penetrated across the border, about 2.500 more. Such an intensity of impact in such a small area has never been seen, say military experts. Claims by the Israeli military command that they are doing everything to reduce the number of civilian casualties generally do not meet with understanding in the world. The Palestinian authorities in Gaza claim that over 10.000 Palestinians have been killed in the month of war, almost half of whom are children.
With binoculars or a good telephoto lens, from a distance of several kilometers, the grayness of the ruins that spreads on the Palestinian side is clearly discernible. At night, the whitish trail of missiles streaks the dark sky, the shimmering orange fire where the missiles hit illuminates the darkness for a moment. The contrast between war lightning and darkness is all the greater, because there is no electricity, and not even the flickering lights of the city area when it gets dark.
Israel Palestinians Photo Gallery Week 4An Israeli tank takes a position on the border with Gaza / Photo: AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo
Hamas is showing signs of life and is now and then firing volleys of rockets at targets along the border, but also in the direction of Tel Aviv. The other day, the CNN crew almost got killed in Sderot.
Israel's condition for the ceasefire is that Hamas immediately release all hostages. Hamas's condition for releasing all the hostages is that Israel stops the attacks. All in all, a ceasefire, let alone a ceasefire, does not exist as an option.
The question hovers over both sides of the front: how long will this war last?
Hotel "Enjoy"
Our journey from the war zone takes us through Jerusalem to the other end of the country, to the Dead Sea on the border with Jordan. We bypass the West Coast, just in case, that's what the trip organizer decided. There are daily clashes between the Israeli security forces, who are looking for the "terrorist cells" of Hamas, and the Palestinians, who, according to the Palestinian Authority, count over 150 dead in a month. It would not be good to find ourselves between two fires, and the question is whether the Israelis would miss us at the checkpoints.
In peacetime conditions, the Dead Sea, which is fed by the Jordan River, is one of Israel's must-see tourist attractions - it is the lowest point on the globe, located about 450 meters below sea level. There are now no tourists in many luxury hotels, some of them house internally displaced persons from the south of Israel.
IMG_6949View of the Dead Sea from the "Enjoy" Hotel / Photo: AI
In a hotel with a cynical name for these occasions Enjoy (enjoy) on the beach itself there are over 400 Israelis displaced from Sderot and a few southern kibbutzim, mostly families with children running around the hotel lobby doing all the things children do.
People are open, they want to talk. There is a great concentration of tragic stories that fill the air. On October 7, members of Hamas invaded Israeli territory, killed over 1.000 civilians and about 400 soldiers, and kidnapped 240 people who are now in Gaza. The images of these bestial crimes in the world media and in the perception of this war by the international audience began to fade slowly, but here, in the hotel Enjoy at the Dead Sea, they are drawn on the faces of the "guests". And not only here: Israelis relive them every day.
02848ecc-56d2-4952-86ee-580a20b03756The lobby of the "Enjoy" hotel before the Shabbat dinner / Photo: AI
In a series of stories about the victims, one about the resistance stands out: the members of the small kibbutz Magen managed to organize a defense and repulse the attack by Hamas terrorists. One security guard was killed, several others were wounded.
At first glance, it can be seen that people are not voluntarily gathered in one place in the hotel. There is some military order in all this apparent chaos. Through the crowd of children walks a beautiful, thin girl with a pistol in her belt and an automatic rifle too big for her frame hanging from her shoulder. She is so youthful, that at first glance she seems to be a child herself. Some men also carry pistols, I learned that they are from the kibbutz security.
The state provided everyone in the hotel with accommodation with breakfast and dinner in its diversity and tastes worthy of paying guests who normally come here as tourists.
Men do not seek help from psychologists
After dinner, the large terrace is filled with a view of the sea, which cannot be seen in the dark. Groups sit at tables, mostly water is drunk. But marijuana is felt from all sides. No one complains, people are under stress, they have experienced what no one should experience.
I enter into a conversation with four young men, three of whom wear kippahs, also known as yarmulkes - caps worn by Jewish believers. Three are from Sderot, one from Kibbutz Reim, the one next to which the music festival was held Supernova Sukkot Gathering in which Hamas killers killed over 260 people. Twenty-one-year-old Shami from Reim was not at the festival. When he noticed what was happening, he hid in one of the many bunkers, actually small, concrete, often cheerfully decorated buildings, from which he came out only after 20:XNUMX p.m. when the Israeli army came.
The guys don't speak English well, but we get along somehow. Each of them knows someone who was killed or kidnapped, schoolmates, teachers, relatives. When asked if the hotel has the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist, they answer in the affirmative. Did they seek help? No, men don't go to psychologists. I tell them that they are wrong, that it has nothing to do with masculinity.
Children of Israel
I also ask them if they are aware of the deadly horror that their peers and much younger children are experiencing in the Gaza Strip. They ask me if I have children. Yes, two daughters. They ask me what I would do if someone harmed them, whether I would kill him, if I could, regardless of the consequences and the innocent victims who might suffer in the process. I am silent. I don't want to answer that question. They explain to me that all the children killed and kidnapped by Hamas are children of Israel.
I think that all the children who perish in Gaza are children of Palestine and that after these bloodsheds, some new generations will grow up for some new bloody confrontations.
IMG_6975Photos of 240 kidnapped Israelis at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv / Photo: AI
Shami asks if I have photos of my daughters. Yes. Do I want to show them to him? I take my phone out of my pocket and open the gallery. At that, one of them starts talking briskly in Hebrew and grabs my hand. They explain to me: It is Shabbat, they are not allowed to watch anything on the phone. This is true for orthodox Jews. I see most of them are hanging on their mobile phones.
Shabbat begins on Friday at sundown and lasts until Saturday when darkness falls, and darkness begins when "the blue thread can no longer be distinguished from the gray." Nothing is done during that period. Shabbat is traditionally spent at home, starting with a feast on Friday.
None of these people will spend Shabbat at home for much longer. And for a long, long time, Israelis will think of the "black Shabbat" on October 7 for every Shabbat. And no one will return to their kibbutz not far from the border with Gaza, as long as there is any danger on the other side. And removing the danger that threatens these people means the continuation of Israel's military actions against Hamas and new suffering for Palestinians.
And so in a circle, for 75 years, since the leader of the Zionist-Socialist Labor Party, David Ben-Gurion, declared Israel a state.
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