It's important to keep a routine as best as possible in Israel, despite the prevalence and randomness of sirens going off, and it was with that in mind, that I walked to Shuk Ha Carmel yesterday morning, the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv.
Despite the prices in Israel increasing steeply, this Friday staple of mine goes back to when I lived here. I love the energy there on Fridays, and to hear "Shabbat Shalom" by every vendor and say it back, and this week you hear both that and "Chag Hanukkah Sameach," Happy Hanukkah.
That said, I had a strong feeling yesterday that there would be sirens in Tel Aviv, as it had been a day since one and they have been constant all over the country all week. In the north, a farmer was killed by an incoming rocket from Hezbollah in Lebanon, so there is no sense that things are calming down at all, despite the IDF killing at least 450 terrorists in Gaza this week and dozens of Hamas terrorists surrendering.
I walked to the market, bought dried aprocots, cashews, avocados, cheese, lettuce, basil, bananas, strawberries and finally feasted on a delicious pastry, packed with cream that I'd been eyeing there weekly for the past month, since arriving in Israel.
I took a lot of pictures, planning to post a gorgeous collage of the beautiful food on facebook afterwards, but in the back of my mind, I wondered where we would all go if a siren sounded, and I figured that as packed as it was there was a plan. There were at least the store fronts behind the stalls, although you are supposed to go underground.
Luckily there were no sirens, and I began my walk back to my apartment on Ben Yehuda in central Tel Aviv. For the first ten minutes of the walk, I was still not seeing appropriate places to run should a siren sound, so luckily Hamas waited until I was on the main street of Ben Yehuda to launch its rockets toward Tel Aviv. The street was pretty quiet as my head swung side to side, taking in my surroundings, aware I had 90 seconds to find cover. A car that was turning skidded to a halt, causing the other car in the intersection to slam on their horn and brake suddenly. I ran in front of this car as I saw people running into a building, so ran after the last guy, who was about to let the door close behind himself, shouting "Shnia! Shnia!" which technically means "second." "One second - one second - I'm coming!" I was saying.
And down we all went, into the shelter of this random building we were in. I was with bikers and dog walkers and whoever else happened to be out trying to enjoy an otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. "Bastards," I apparently muttered as I entered the building, which I wouldn't even know until I watched the video back.
After we all heard the booms of the rockets being shot down by the Iron Dome, we reemerged and I continued toward my Air BNB, but I was now upset.
Israelis have been living with these rockets from Hamas for decades, and only once in awhile went into Gaza to blast their infrastructure and handle it, but this "handling" was always temporary. No matter how many ceasefires there have been, Hamas has always broken them, shooting rockets whenever they can into Israel, and this is after Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, something most in the nonstop Tiktok videos demonizing Israel don't seem to know at all.
We did leave Gaza and hand over control to the Palestinain people, who elected Hamas in 2006. Hamas then pushed members of Fatah, the former governing terrorist group, off of buildings and took full control, and could have used the billions that pour in from all over the world for the people of Gaza - for the people of Gaza. They could have built hotels along the Mediterranean Sea and become a jewel of the Middle East, had their goal been to enrich the lives of the Palestinian people. But that wasn't their goal, and it isn't their goal and October 7th proves it will never be their goal.
Their goal is to destroy Israel, and murder everyone living in Israel, whether they're Jewish or not, and then to kill every Jew worldwide. Period. Their goal is our genocide, a word that is now freely thrown around but against Israel, who is finally tasked with destroying Hamas, after years of our doing the bare minimum against them, despite the constant firing of these rockets into our cities, which are aimed to kill us.
We are tasked with destroying them because there is no other option, after Hamas broke the ceasefire on October 7th by brutally slaughtering what is now 350 young people at a dance, and an additional 1000 innocent civilians - entire families - in their homes - women and children and grandmothers and handicapped people - often livestreaming it from the phones of their victims, and often amputating body parts and then burning the victims alive.
Yet with this goal has come the deaths of innocents in Gaza, and with that has come our condemnation by much of the western world, countries so many of us hail from, yet I think it is pretty fair to say, that if Americans had to constantly pull over to the side of the road and run for cover, that it would not just be accepted as a "part of life," or as something they just "had to deal with." I am sure they wouldn't deal with it at all and would take all necessary actions to stop it no matter what it took. In fact, I'm sure Americans wouldn't waste precious time and endanger its troops by warning innocent civilians on the other side (which also warns Hamas) of where they would be firing in order to protect these innocent lives.
And I'm sure the world would understand Americans' need for security and add the American flag to their facebook frames, as they did with the French flag, but we in Israel - we see a lot of Palestinian flags and a lot of Hamas flags, as we defend the democracies of the world in this war, and the very freedoms allowing for these mass demonstrations in the first place. We are defending Western ideals from Radical terrorists - so you're welcome.
I was home ten minutes later after this outdoor siren that had turned my day dark, but I actually had plans so needed to get ready. A friend of mine had invited me to a Shabbat dinner, which turned out to be a Hanukkah party at her sister's friends, so as frightening as that daytime siren had been, at least "today's siren" had already happened, right?
I showered and got ready, and walked to meet my friend for her sister to pick us up, carrying the bouquet of fresh flowers for the hostess that I had purchased at the infamous "shuk."
We were picked up and I met her sister and her lovely child, a little boy named Yonathan (Jonathan) who doesn't speak English but wants to live in America when he gets older. I was practicing my Hebrew and answering the standard difficult questions from her sister about where I was "from," where I live now and how I had come back to Israel since the war - to find comfort from friends and to write about the events here.
It turned out we were going to a suburb called Kfar Saba, which is about 20 minutes away, so we drove up through the north of Tel Aviv and onto the highway. I didn't have a car when I lived in Israel, so was taking in the marvelous city lights of this beautiful place, when her sister's phone started making a calming ring sound, but over and over again.
"Oh, there's an incoming," she said, and it took a minute for me and Anat to understand it.
"What? There's one now?" I said, and Anat said she didn't hear it, but I rolled down the window and of course then we all could - the now familiar wail of a siren.
Her sister was already getting off at an exit and I soon saw cars just pulling over at a busy traffic circle and getting out of the car.
Perplexed, I said "We're staying in the car right?"
"No, we get out," she said matter-of-factly, so the four of us exited the vehicle in the dark and followed other pedestrians - not into a building or into a shelter no - just to a corner outside, between plywood for construction covered in ads in case you needed work done.
My camera was on and I dared turn it up toward the sky before getting onto the ground so I caught what you can see is a bright moving light and the sky lighting up red. I knew these were rockets and I knew that the Iron Dome would hopefully do its job and blow them up, but this meant the explosions I always hear from the shelters - that my videos never pick up - that these were now about to happen while I was on the street - which would then cause the blown up rockets to fall wherever they felt like.
So, already on my knees, I swore repeatedly, and finally flipped my hair over and covered my head with both arms, when the explosions began. Again and again and then a very loud one which would affect my heart rate for the remainder of the evening.
I could hear little Yonathan crying and words of comfort being said to children by this group of strangers sharing this anything-but-normal moment together, as I would soon learn when we got back into the car wasn't just my first time having a siren go off while driving, it was the first time for all of us.
And then that was it. We got back on the highway and drove to her friends, where we were greeted warmly by a lovely woman, who wore a reindeer head band for the "Christmukkah" party we had arrived to.
She was thrilled with my flowers, Anat's wine and her sister's baked Challah bread, and for the first time in way too many years, I was part of a group as the Hanukkah candles were lit. I pigged out on sweet potato soup and salad and bread and cheese and pizza and pastries, as I talked with an editor from a news channel here and watched the kids play "Hide and Go Seek," explaining to yet another woman how I'd felt called to come back and to write to let people outside of Israel know exactly what was going on here.
And if the camera could zoom out of this apartment, the shot would show endless gatherings of grown-ups and children, laughing and celebrating with hope, as the Mediterranean glistens to the west, present for generations and for millenia, its waves crashing gently and steadily against its holy shore. Countless families, hailing from all over the world, leaving for one reason and coming to Israel for another, all these reasons different yet simultaneously the same.
While to our north, and to our east, and most definitely in our south, it is the weapons that are shimmering, as they're aimed in our direction, and the rockets that are sharpened as they point at all of us, in this tiny sliver of land, that is so small that finding it on a world map is tricky. This tiny sliver of land that is the world's focus anyway, as we're held to impossible standards when waging any war, and forced to defend ourself for defending ourselves, and accused of and blamed for doing exactly what Hamas is doing.
But we will still celebrate, and light our candles and drive to our dinners, and be brave as we mourn and strong as we're hunted, because we know what we're dealing with in Hamas and trust the world will too and soon - as the people of Gaza have started to scream into cameras that Hamas is taking all of the food and fuel and aid being sent for "humanitarian purposes" and saying that they are "mocked" when begging for water. They are screaming to "RELEASE THE HOSTAGES" and "may you suffer for your sins" to Hamas leaders with on radio and on televisions, and this is a first - they have always been too terrified to do this.
We will defend our nation and defend our people, as any civilized society would be expected to do and have the right to do if 1400 of its citizens were butchered in their homes, hundreds so badly they will never be identified, with 250 hostages being taken and 138 remaining in captivity as we speak, with every passing minute a risk to their lives and a sharp and constant pain for all of us.
We will not be annihilated by any of our neighbors, and we will not be judged into submission by our "allies." We are fighting for our lives here and that means the removal of Hamas from Gaza, and this removal will in turn do what the world is continually calling for - it will "Free Gaza" and it will "Free Palestine."
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In case you want to help:
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 at home, accommodation here in Israel and the building of this website, which still needs work to maximize visibility. 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 interviews with families of hostages around the country 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
Is it possible to get some media to pay for your articles?
They are all very good and moving. I think you are accomplishing what you set out to do, but you could use a wider audience.