Rocket nights
From the moment the siren sounds, waking up everyone who could
dream of sleeping, I have a few seconds to run with my wife and two children to
the "safe room", that anti-missile room that is in many of the
buildings in Israel. I tell my children that it's "fireworks" and
"celebration...just like independence day", while I listen to the
sound of explosions, the result of the interception of the "Iron
Dome", that Israeli anti-missile technology, which destroys most of the
rockets launched from gaza into Israel.
But not all rockets are successfully intercepted. More than 3,000
rockets were fired last week from Gaza into Jerusalem, southern and central
Israel. Many of them have caused death. Young children and mothers lost their
lives. Yes, we are living through days of war in Israel; nights lit by
explosives whose sole purpose, beyond blindly killing innocent civilians, is to
sow fear, despair and chaos. Hamas, a terrorist organization committed to the
idea of "wiping the Jewish State off the map", began its attacks
again, obsessed with positioning itself better within Palestinian politics.
Hamas knows the Israeli well. Aware of the moral criteria of the
Israeli army, it launches its missiles from hospitals, schools, community
centers and civilian buildings. Its rocket factories, mostly underground, are
strategically located, using its civilian population as a human shield. In the
face of that, it is difficult to act. But the Israeli army does, and carefully.
You will be hard pressed to find a single army in the world, which after
constant attacks by its enemy, collapses a building used for terror, but not
before warning its residents to get out in time. That's right: Israeli
intelligence telephones the residents of the building and warns them that in a
few hours - they will attack. Shortly before the operation, leaflets with the
same message are dropped, and before the final attack, warning shots are sent. Just think of the complexity of the military operation, in a
terrain where the enemy uses its own children and teenagers as human shields;
just think of the complexity of a conflict where the leaders of one side
glorify death and educate to martyrdom, while the other glorifies life as the
most authentic representation of God.
Nothing is easy in the Holy Land. As holy as it is, so are its
problems. Among multiple religions, tensions and contradictions, it remains to
pray that calm and peace will come one day soon. What more would a mother want
than the good future and good health of her child. No rocket has ever achieved
that goal.
