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The alarm on my phone went off this morning at 07:15. Either it also woke Tzippi, or she was already awake. The first thing she said was to ask if I'd heard the preliminary alert at 04:30. I hadn't. Though at night my phone is right next to the bed, I didn't hear it when it beeped, and I continued to sleep soundly. I got to the college at 07:50, and another preliminary alarm went off just as I was entering the gate. There was also a distant siren, but by the time I got to my office, about a minute walk from the gate, this particular event was also behind us.
My day on campus been productive. My officemate who was in India when the war started (or at least when this phase of the war started) returned at the end of last week (four days later than planned) and she came to the college today. Together we were able to solve a couple of outstanding issues. And that was about it for the day. My officemate WhatsApped me when she got home to let me know that she'd gotten into her house before an alert, but it was an alert that I wasn't at all aware of. Which was sort of the way the day went. As expected there were reports of missiles in the north, but by us things were quiet. After the news we even put on a movie, though just before it started we had a preliminary alert. It didn't turn into a siren. At 23:30, ten minutes before the end of the film, however, we heard a siren in our area and then the preliminary alert. We went to our safe room, but left the door open, and ten minutes later we returned to finish viewing the film. Though at the time no casualties were reported, a few minutes later we learned that a foreign worker was killed, apparently from shrapnel, rather than from a direct hit. It was only a few minutes later, when I scrolled through the WhatsApp messages from the various groups I'm subscribed to, that I learned that around 22:30 there had been an earlier barrage, and in a Palestinian town in the Hebron area (to be clear, that's in the occupied territories, not Israel proper) at least four women were killed, apparently when a beauty salon was hit. This was reported by a television reporter, but on a different channel. On the one we're watching we haven't heard this mentioned. It probably was earlier, but didn't make a major enough headline to continue being reported.
I'm now drying off after my shower, wondering if today was really as uneventful, or more accurately, "normal" as I've made it seem. I guess it was, though since I wasn't very focused on the evening news I don't know what, if anything, was reported about possible diplomatic advances. My guess is that nothing significant happened on that front. There was, however, one encouraging development. Referring to the ongoing pogroms from our "hillside youth", our Chief of Staff noted today that the situation in the west bank is unacceptable. Of course he didn't go as far as to say that the government looks the other way, or is even encouraging the violence, but even if it's come very late, it was still a clear statement. Now our ruling government will probably claim that he's a flaming leftist and must be fired.
Enough for now.
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