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In the two hours since I last wrote we've had a couple of alerts. One of those was even close to home and we again sat in our safe room. The television news reported that there have been glitches with the alert system, and by us that may have meant that we didn't get the announcement that we could leave the room. So we sat there longer than we had to, though of course there really wasn't anyplace else to go. We've equipped the room with both WiFi and a direct internet cable, and when we've sat there I've had the news channel on through Tzippi's laptop. A short while ago, when the news reported that people in the north and in the Jerusalem area could leave their safe rooms (while still staying close by) we realized that we could as well. During that time we had a short WhatsApp chat with Nadav.
On the television we're now being told that this can go on for days. But did anyone really expect this to be over quickly, Venezuela style? I'm not even sure that Trump did. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be an end plan beyond total capitulation of the Iranian regime, and I greatly doubt that that's about to happen. Getting back to negotiations would be a good idea, and I wouldn't be surprised if Trump would chooses that. He's flexed his muscles and may now be ready to move onto something else. Netanyahu, on the other hand, needs a total victory (like what he achieved in Gaza). BTW, it's worth remembering that it wasn't that long ago that Trump claimed that he'd totally obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities, which makes it more than a bit strange that that seems to be one of the present objectives. Where Netanyahu is concerned I'd be surprised that he'd want to achieve that. It would leave him without an existential enemy.
As you can see, however, I don't have anything new to report. It's now 22:15 and since washing the modest dinner dishes (we mostly finished off some leftovers) I've been watching the news and reading about things unrelated to our war - Anthropic and the DoD, some education related stuff, and not enough of the Shabbat paper. (Luckily I read a rather large part of it yesterday.) Tzippi has been working on a jigsaw puzzle, and just now switched from the news to simply switching channels in order to find something (anything?) else to watch.
School has been cancelled, at least for tomorrow, and for me that's not a bad thing. It's presently exam season at the college and seven exams via our LMS were supposed to take place this coming week. Though the exams are via the LMS they're set to take place on campus. At present they've been postponed for a week which for me is preferable. Had a decision been made to have them take place via the LMS but from students' homes I'd have a couple of hours of work to arrange that. (Faculty know that I'm in favor of "alternative assessment" but that I usually suggest that the simplest solution in wartime situations is to give everyone 80.)
We just had another alert on our phones (22:30). I told Tzippi to leave the television on the film she'd switched to (even if she wasn't really watching it) and I clicked into the news on my laptop in order to determine if a missile was directed toward our area. Apparently not ... or apparently yes. As soon as I wrote "not" the sirens in our area (and apparently in a number of others) went off, and I'm now continuing this from our safe room where I've again opened Tzippi's laptop to the news while I continue to write from mine. And for some reason the live television feed stopped for a few minutes. The report now, from the general Tel Aviv area, is that either a missile or parts of it hit a building. This is the first report we've had this time of damage and of injuries. As is often the case, at first the report was a handful of not serious injuries, but about half an hour later the report was that someone was seriously injured, and now it's one death. So we got through a pretty long day of "nothing serious", and now we're realizing that we were simply lucky. Quiet it's not.
It's now 01:10. Tzippi just turned her night-light off, and I just got out of the shower. This is a pretty regular time for me. I usually dry off with a bit of reading before crawling into bed. Tonight, however, we had to decide whether to sleep in our bed or in the safe room. If we take our chances and there are alerts we have to get up and go to the room. Though we wouldn't have to run it would be easier to simply be in the safe room already. But it's considerably less comfortable there so we decided on the bedroom, hoping to wake up only in the morning.
I'm listening to the news program (with my earbuds) on my laptop as I write. I wanted to get one more picture of the situation before shutting down. And there's a report of a possible flying object entering Israeli territory in the north. Here it's presently quiet, and I'm certainly not going to keep listening until it won't be. It makes more sense to go to sleep already.
Hopefully I won't really have more to report tomorrow, but I doubt that will be the case.
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