The death rapture of the biblical land

For "Vreme" from Tel Aviv

The war is physically almost invisible in Tel Aviv. Every now and then an air alert, very rarely a home-made rocket fired by Hamas penetrates the Iron Dome defense system that very effectively protects Israel from all possible enemy missiles and damages some buildings. Injuries are even rarer.

When the sirens go off, you should have a minute and a half to seek shelter. Soon there is a dull bang in the sky, one or more of them. This means that the rocket or rockets that were fired from the Gaza Strip 70 kilometers away from this city, Mediterranean bustle, was neutralized. And life goes on, for those who interrupted it for a short time to seek shelter. Many Israelis don't even pay attention to these audio-visual war distractions anymore.

War, however, is in people's minds. It is omnipresent. Israelis need to explain what happened to them on October 7. A girl at the airport says that her boyfriend was mobilized, that her friend and her friend's brother were kidnapped on the day that Israel draped blue and white flags soaked in blood. The army confirmed to them, he says, that they are in the hands of Hamas, but there is no physical evidence. The day before, they had returned from a family trip to Mexico. No sooner had they arrived than they went to a music festival near the Gaza border, which turned into a festival of death and manhunts. She could easily be there too.

She says she is scared. Not so much from the Hamas rockets, but from everything she now thinks could happen, which she was previously convinced was impossible.

And the Palestinian civilian victims who fall every day under the Israeli sword of fire in Gaza? Well, it's not the Israeli army's fault, Hamas is using them as human shields. And Palestinian children are also raised from an early age to hate Jews, to be terrorists. Why didn't the Palestinians do something in the Gaza Strip, they had decades to build a country where they could live nicely?

You can hear these same arguments from many Israelis. As well as a new, modern anti-Semitism being born and spreading around the world. The hidden one, when everything is fine and dandy, except it's not because the wave of hatred directed at the Jews rolls quietly under the kindly spoken words. Mass anti-Israel protests around the world, or demonstrations of support for the Palestinians, as one prefers, speak in favor of this.

A large number of Israeli flags with the Star of David, large and small, can be seen on the streets of Tel Aviv, on banners, buildings, and cars. The Israelis are at war, if necessary, against the whole world.

THE SECOND PHASE OF THE WAR AGAINST HAMAS: "We are moving to the second phase of the war against Hamas," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently. What this means is visible these days: real fire is falling from the sky on the Gaza Strip, targeting hundreds of targets designated, as the Israeli military command claims, as strongholds and command centers of the militant Hamas. The Israelis claim to have killed dozens of Hamas terrorists.

In the most densely populated area in the world, however, almost every missile involves civilian casualties. The Gaza Ministry of Health claimed the other day that there are more than 8.000, and the number is constantly growing.

Every day, the Israeli army fires at hundreds of targets. It is obvious that the military action is gaining momentum.

PICTURES OF HELL: Images of the hell that Gaza has turned into, children killed and children wounded in inhumane conditions lying in overcrowded hospitals, the pain of people who have lost family members, destroyed residential areas, reports of hunger and thirst, of people drinking salt water out of desperation, infectious diseases spreading, hungry people raiding aid warehouses, demonstrations in support of the Palestinians around the world are increasing international pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid civilian population.

The United Nations warns of the "collapse of civil order in Gaza", Secretary-General Antonio Guterres increasingly criticizes Israel for not doing anything to mitigate the humanitarian disaster, nor to reduce the number of civilian casualties. Tel Aviv reacted violently to it.

The reaction to the visit of the Hamas delegation to Moscow last week was equally stormy, although, officially, there was only talk of releasing hostages who, in addition to Israeli citizenship, also have Russian citizenship. Most Western countries have placed Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations, so there are no direct negotiations, but only through Qatar.

US President Joe Biden reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself, but he also said that it must take more account of civilian casualties. America is slowly entering the election year, and CNN reports that Biden's approval rating has started to decline due to his wholehearted and all-out support for Israel.

URGENT EVACUATION CALL: On Sunday, October 29, the Israeli army called on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to "urgently" evacuate from the north to the south.

"For the last two weeks, we have been calling on the residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip and Gaza City to temporarily move to the south for their own safety," said the chief spokesman of the Israeli army, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. On Sunday, he emphasized that this call is really "urgent".

If it is, it shows the penetration of Israeli tanks from the south about three kilometers deep into the Gaza Strip. At the same time, photos of Israeli tanks appeared on the other side of the Palestinian territory, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The intention of the Israeli army to encircle the northern part of Gaza is visible.

Of the two priorities of military operations stated by the Government of Israel - the destruction of Hamas and the release of hostages - the elimination of the militant Palestinian organization from the face of the earth appears to be the higher priority.

According to the latest data, there are 239 hostages, many of whom have dual citizenships, in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israel's military campaign also threatens their security and makes it difficult to negotiate for Hamas to release at least a certain number. Israeli officials have expressed doubts about the sincerity of the intentions of the "Palestinian terrorists" regarding the hostages.

FEAR OF REGIONAL CONFLICT: Seen from Israel, the Jewish state in the new historical draw of cards is fighting no less, no more than a battle for its own existence. The failures of the security services, the weakness it showed when several hundred Hamas fighters penetrated its territory and killed around 1.400 people, the broken myth of its own strength, inviolability and invincibility, the Israeli government is trying to compensate with a demonstration of inexorable force.

Israel shows a deterministic determination to bring things to an end, the kind that, from the point of view of the Israelis, guarantees their permanent security. The Israelis, trained from a young age to, if necessary, defend the land they consider theirs with weapons in hand, in the struggle for survival, as they generally perceive this war, have neither the capacity for excessive sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinians, nor for listening to the warnings of friendly countries.

The longer the Israeli military campaign on Gaza lasts, with human suffering of biblical proportions, the greater the danger that Palestinian discontent in the West Bank and East Jerusalem will explode and turn into a third Intifada.

REGION VIEW: At the same time, pressure is growing on Hezbollah in Lebanon to come to the aid of the Palestinian brothers, to intensify attacks on Israel, to open a new front in the north of Israel, thereby stretching the Israeli military forces and weakening the troops concentrated around Gaza.

Even the neighboring Arab states, including those that are American allies, will not be able to sit idly by and watch Armageddon in Gaza for a long time. The revolt of their public is growing.

The Middle East is on the verge of a regional conflict, which, due to the American military presence, would very quickly turn into a global one - another parallel international military conflict that, at the moment, has been almost forgotten by the war in Ukraine.

Because of all this, Israel is forced to accelerate the ground military offensive.

In all this ecstasy of death, one piece of news struck Israelis like a ray of sunshine breaking through black clouds in the middle of a storm: Israeli ground troops rescued 19-year-old Ori Megidish from captivity in devastated Gaza, who was serving her military service when she was was hijacked by Hamas. It gave hope to the relatives and friends of all the other kidnapped people.¶