"Thank goodness I am here," has been my predominant thought since returning to Israel last Monday.
This is despite losing my Israeli passport and ID on my way here, nearly missing my connection in Paris, my bag not showing up for three days and living in a t-shirt, and a totally new experience on a Kibbutz (I am such a Tel Aviv person), but I am not here to roam my beloved city and old home this time. I am here on a very specific mission.
My last post (here) from just 48 hours ago details my arrival to Kibbutz Hazerim, where the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri have been moved after a year in a hotel. 102 men, women and children from Kibbutz Be'eri were murdered on or since October 7th and the trauma has been ongoing. Most of the remaining 1100 residents have been moved in the past month to Kibbutz Hazerim for the next 2-3 years while Kibbutz Be'eri, which lies about 4 km from Gaza (less than 2.5 miles from Gaza) - is rebuilt, but this has not even begun. Right now, much of Be'eri is only beginning to be torn down.
The texts from the news app I get about the war escalating any second have been relentless, but this was the case before I got to Israel, so I have become a bit numb to them. However, last night these incessant warnings became reality.
After joining about a dozen residents on the minibus into Tel Aviv for the weekly Saturday night protests in "Hostage Square" and Begin Street, where we fight to get the hostages back and support the hostage families on Day 352 of this war, I had about 10 texts on the news app waiting to be read. These announced school closures in the north and even more serious threats for an attack coming last night.
I was still awake when said attack happened, which I could blame on the jet lag, but really I'm just a night owl.
My phone started going crazy with Red Alerts, and I even captured a screenshot of a rocket attack into Nazareth.
Israel was definitely hit, and tonight it is expected to happen again, only deeper into Israel.
How deep? How far can Hezbollah go?
If anyone is still talking to their "friends" at home who aren't Jewish and converse about any of this, and they ask what's going on, you can tell them that Hezbollah has sent more than 8000 rockets into Israel since October 8th and that more than 60,000 Israelis - just from Israel's north - have been evacuated and living in hotel rooms with their entire families.
You can tell them that school started a month ago and that they are less than ideal.
You can tell them that their Kibbutz lives and communities are abandoned and their farms in ruin. You can tell them that there has been no end in sight since October on when they might be able to return home, and that it will be one year since they have been living like this in only 16 days.
You can tell them that if they try to leave the hotel room after a year, renting an apartment is even more impossible, with people raising rents as much as they can, and that these small towns near the Kinneret that originally took them in with large hearts, are only small communities, and that after a year it is wearing everyone down. They really aren't prepared for all of these extra people living amongst them long-term.
My friend Ronit Kalman is from the North. I met her twenty years ago when I lived in Tel Aviv, and saw her awesome brother Menny for haircuts. She worked with him back then, so I saw her from time to time, but it has only been since October 7th that we have really started talking and that she has heard what I have been through for the past ten years and knows why I came to Israel in November and threw myself into this project and knows why (for me), being here - even now - (especially now) - makes sense.
I have also met her kids and heard what she has been going through since October 7th. In fact, it was a post of hers that made me aware of just how bad the attack last year was, as on the day I caught something on her page that said "You know those horror movies with people whispering and saying 'they're right outside right now? I am hiding in a room...'...'that is actually happening RIGHT NOW.'"
Ronit actually threw a party for hostage Ariel Bibas's fifth birthday party in captivity, complete with heaps of orange ballons, for his and his infant's brother famous red hair. This day, August 5th, was a day that all of Israel...celebrated? No. Commemorated? Possibly.
Observed.
Was aware of.
She does not know Ariel. She just cares about Ariel, and all of the hostages. The post that accompanied her picture on Facebook, was the following:
"Fifth birthday in captivity. Blowing out candles in your honor, Ariel, and wishing and hoping and praying that you will come back, with Kfir, Mom and Dad. We're all waiting for you and holding you in our hearts all the time."
She is what I would call a sensible and very level-headed person, two things I can't relate to very well, but she has been living in a hotel room in the Kinneret with triplets, a fourth young child, AND a husband.
To say I can't even imagine that is an understatement. Can anyone?
How long would any country just "deal with it"? Just move tens of thousands of residents out of their homes as rockets fly in, and resign themselves to the fact that they can never go home, and you know - let that be that.
So - here we go again - we must now rid ourselves of Hezbollah. Somehow.
But Hezbollah is not a joke. They make Hamas look like children. They have 300,000 plus gigantic rockets with GPS, and have been planning an attack for years. Of all of Iran's proxies, they are the largest and most prepared army. In fact, a war with them will be worse than one with Iran directly, as they are right here, and have experience fighting with Israel.
So, I (and I am sure we), cannot be sure what is coming.
But am I scared? No. Do I wish I were "home" in Charlotte? No.
Just in the past month I wrote to a family that has known me since I was two saying that I would be in New Jersey for my high school reunion. They wrote back thrilled to hear from me. I wrote back telling them about my incredible year, how shattered I was by October 7th but what I did about it. I included my best blog posts in the email...and never heard back.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and wrote again, saying, "I never heard back," and guess what? I never heard back.
On the way to New Jersey, I had a nasty woman on the plane next to me. I thought I was imagining it until I saw the home screen on her phone with Palestine this and Palestine that and then realized I was decked out in my Bring Them Home Now gear.
I've been craving getting back here to be surrounded by people who care about things here who can converse about things here who are distraught about things here and can even laugh about things here and then tonight, I sat here shaking my head, when the new friend I owe so much to, Adam Rapaport from Kibbutz Be'eri, who spent 20 hours in his safe room on October 7th, and learned later that his brother Yoni was murdered and whose best friend Itay Svirsky was murdered as a hostage in Gaza, posted the following on Facebook:
"Friends from the north, my home in Be'eri is open to you. There's almost nothing here [rockets/war], especially in relation to the north, so please know that my door is open." He is still technically a refugee, traveling to a hotel in the Dead Sea on weekends, and back to Be'eri during the week to work, where only about 70 others have been living at all since the October 7th attack, yet that was his post tonight, thinking of ways to help everyone else.
If that doesn't say it all, I am not sure what will.
What a country.
What a people.
Thank goodness I am here.
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This is a labor of love and I feel called to do it, but admit it has started to cost a small fortune, between flights, rent in the US, accommodation in Israel and the building of this website. I have therefore started a GoFundMe in the hopes of getting a little bit of help to stay here another month or two to conduct these interviews with families of hostages and cover the war from the ground. Any donation, no matter how small, will go toward accommodation and bare bone travel expenses. Anything at all will be tremendously helpful and very much appreciated. With gratitude, Melanie
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