Letters from the Gaza War - 2008-2009
	Jan. 2, 2009 - day 7
	Hi all, Had a nice skype talk yesterday with Carolyn and David. Encouraging to know people are thinking of us. I think that Kibbutz Hazor is insulted to be in the thick of things instead of helping out. On Sunday when we had our first Alert siren and missile nearby we had a group of school age kids from further south who were here for a fun and sport day at our gym. I really admire all the people who have been living like this over the last 8 years! One week is certainly enough. The southern Negev is fairly sparsely populated so for the most part all the missiles were falling on an area of spread out small towns and kibbutzim. Probably 150,000 people in all. A year ago they started to reach Ashkelon adding another 150,000 people. This week however they are hitting the biggest cities in Israel. Beersheva has 260,000 and Ashdod 240,000 and all the towns in between, so in one swoop they have quadrupled the population under attack and of course big cities are more crowded and so easier to hit something other than open fields. Yesterday there was a direct hit on an apartment building in Ashdod, wrecking the top 2 floors but no one was injured! There was a quiet night but already this morning 3 rockets fell south and 6 fell in Ashkelon. As I said to Carolyn we are having a very "AURAL" war. We hear all the neighbouring sirens and many of the missiles falling and cannot really make out what is happening. We also hear the air force flying overhead all night. If we enter Gaza we will also hear the artillery fire but as of now we are pretty much functioning as usual. Schools are closed-at first it was 20km. radius then 30km. and as of Thursday morning 40km. The boys are glad and have been going to work to get extra hours. We have several invites to go north to friends of Jay's and if for no other reason than that we aren't working (and we rarely go away) we may take them up on it to get a break from all this. I am waiting for the new fridge to be delivered on Sunday so that makes it hard to go before then but this doesn't look like there will be a quick end. Have a good weekend Bye Tzippi
		to day 9