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It's 09:30, and it seems like a good time to start this report. A few minutes ago we were "released" from our safe room for the third time this morning. We were awakened a bit before 07:00 by the preliminary alert on our phones, and a few minutes later the sirens sent us to the safe room. About ten minutes later I crawled back to bed. At 08:20 this repeated itself, except this time instead of going to bed I got dressed and turned on my laptop. The third time (so far) was a bit after 09:00. This time Hatzor showed up on the list the television shows of places where getting to the safe room is necessary. (We're on the map!!) These latest barrages haven't been only to our area - numerous others were also shelled. Apparently only one person has been injured from all this.
It's about an hour and a half since the paragraph above. Tzippi went off to an arts activity led by a Hatzor member and I've been busy dealing with a couple of issues from the college that some lecturers asked me about. Throughout, the television has been open, and a moment ago they reported that since the morning there have been seven alerts (not including the north). And then - an eighth, this time with a preliminary alert by us, though at the moment no siren. (A moment ago a reporter told us to expect sirens in the area north of Ashdod which may mean us ... and for some real real-time, we're now being told that this barrage is over a wide swatch of Israel, supposedly including us, though I'm still without a siren.)
It's now almost 23:00. Most of the afternoon was uneventful for us, though close to 18:00, during our recorder chug, we had an alert, and then a siren. We ordinarily hold the chug in a converted children's house without a safe space, but like last week we met in a nearby children's house that does have a safe space, and we sat there for about ten minutes until we got the all clear. Before then, and since then, by us it's been quiet. But four visits to safe spaces in one day doesn't make the day a quiet one. And again the north has pretty much been under a continual barrage.
Other than the television, I don't have a source from which I can feel the pulse of the average Israeli, so my impressions may be far from accurate. Having written that, I get the impression that more and more Israelis are realizing that the original bluster about regime change in Iran, not to mention demolishing Iran's ability to threaten/harm us, was just that. Meanwhile our government is working overtime allocating money to its coalition partners (while taking it from necessary social projects) and passing laws weakening our internal democracy. In the territories it not only turns the other cheek to the ongoing pogroms on Palestinian villages and towns, it even encourages them. So it should make sense that the average Israeli should be fed up with all this, so "realizing" the emptiness of the bluster, if that's really happening, is a pretty minimal reaction to our craziness.
It's now 01:20. We set our clocks forward tonight so to a certain extent it makes sense to get to sleep earlier than usual - which, though I'm now after my shower, I'm clearly not doing. But since we don't have to get up in the morning it really doesn't make a difference. The past couple of hours had alerts, but we know this only from the television. I'm not complaining.
I'm linking here to an article on Etgar Keret's Substack - The Fog of War. Keret is a well known and relatively young author who often describes absurd situations. That means that he's in a good position to write about our war.
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