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It's now 19:00, and Tzippi just came home from teaching - three girls from the same family she's been with for a number of years - in Gan Yavne. She went out at 15:15. About two minutes after she went out we had a preliminary alert and she decided to continue on to their house which is less than five minutes away. This time the alert became a get-to-your-safe-rooms siren just as she got to their door, so she stayed in their safe room until the all clear. And since she wasn't here I had the safe room all to myself. While there I heard two loud booms, and Hatzor even showed up on television that listed the areas with real alerts.
That alert was our third today. We had an earlier one at 13:00, and then again around 14:00. For that one I was by my 93 year old "student" helping her with pre-ordering an appointment at the pharmacy tomorrow. These alerts didn't send us to our safe rooms. My student doesn't have a safe room, and since she's still recuperating from a hip operation it would have taken her a while (though a short while) to get to it. She did, however, ask me what we should do. What she meant was that perhaps I didn't want to stay by her but instead return when there wasn't an alert.
So I had a sort-of quiet afternoon. (Sort-of because I had a couple of short Zoom-related involvements related to the college, and those can be frustrating when people don't understand what to do or on what to click.) Since leaving our safe room I hadn't turned on the television, so at 18:00 I was surprised to see on one of my WhatsApp lists a report that there were no reported injuries from the last barrage of missiles. This was obviously later than 15:30, and I hadn't been aware that in places other than ours things hadn't been quiet. Obviously I missed something. When Tzippi walked in she asked if I'd heard the boom. I assumed she was referring to those from 15:30, but it turns out that she meant something she'd just heard when she got home. This as well didn't have any alert or siren by us. It seems I'm missing out on some of the fun.
This afternoon, apparently after Israel killed an additional major Iranian leader, the army has warned us that chances are good that there will be numerous missiles from Iran and Lebanon this evening. This warning is probably because of the harsh criticism it received when it didn't issue a similar warning a few days ago. After almost three weeks of rather constant reports of how depleted the Iranian arsenal is, it seems that we still are under continual fire. Numerous reports I've seen tell us that U.S. Intelligence expects that the Iranian regime will not only survive this war, but even come out of it stronger. If that's the case, Trump and Netanyahu are apparently redefining the word "victory".
What was promised seems to have started. It's 20:40 and a number of missiles have been fired from Lebanon. At present, either intercepted or landing in unpopulated areas.
Since that short paragraph, other than occasional reports of missiles in the north, it was quiet. I mostly read the rest of the Shabbat paper I hadn't yet gotten around to. And just now, 00:10, we're getting an alert. Tzippi hadn't yet gone to the shower, and now she'll wait until this is behind us. It seems that the area of that alert was very large, but we didn't get an additional siren and hadn't gone to our safe room. And then, instead of getting an all clear we got an additional preliminary alert. The preliminary report is that it's in our general area, but so far no siren. While it may not be for us, it's still not yet shower time. Now, 04:00, we're getting an all clear, and Tzippi is off to the shower, after we've watched some damage from this last barrage to a purposefully not identified train station that's being shown on television.
I doubt that this play-by-play sort of reporting makes for interesting reading, but on the other hand, that's perhaps precisely what makes it interesting, if at all. I sat down to continue writing now, at 01:10, after getting out of the shower. I'm getting up early to go to the college tomorrow and Tzippi was still busy with some tasks, so it made sense for me to take the first shower and just maybe get to bed. The television reports that from this last barrage two people were killed. We've had relatively (relative to what?) few casualties over these past almost three weeks, and a report of deaths, rather than reports of destruction of buildings and cars after the all clear, understandably becomes an intensive report rather than a swift return to our (ir)regular programming. I don't know why, but when events of this type happen there seems to be a feeling of being compelled to continue watching the television report, even though it's clear that nothing new or different is going to be reported. I'll resist that now and instead try to get some sleep.
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