1 Missile Every 4 Days: Life in Southern Israel

Saturday, August 27 2016

UPDATES  8 am Israel time:

…Palestinian terror yesterday unreported in the mainstream media…

It was a particularly violent Friday, even by Friday standards with more than 30 Palestinian terror attacks reported.

*Two shooting incidents took place, one at Silwad and the other on the Gaza border (see the news ticker above).

*Palestinian arsonists started fires near Ori in Samaria.

*Palestinian rioters assaulted Israeli security personnel at Kedumim, Silwad, Yatma, A-Tur, Dehaisha, and Dir Nizam among other places.

*Palestinian “rock” throwers attacked at such places as the Benjamin intersection, Beit Sahur, Joshua’s Tomb in Kifl Hares, Hawara, Hizma, and Yair Nave.

TODAY’S BLOG:

Your humble servant calls your attention today to the missile counter in the right hand column. You will note that it has now been two years since the end of the 2014 war with Palestinians in Gaza.

You will also note that in the last two years 175 missiles have been fired out of Gaza at southern Israel.* 

To put it a different way, in the last 730 days of supposed “quiet”, a missile has been fired at southern Israel on the average of once every 4.17 days.

Let’s round it off.

1 missile every 4 days.

And what does “1 missile” entail? It involves alarms going off on people’s phones, sirens screaming in the target areas, Israelis running for their lives to find a fortified place or bomb shelter, Israelis waiting anxiously to hear the impact of the missile’s explosion, and Israelis finally venturing out to see what damage has been done.

And to wait, expectantly, for the next incoming missile.

Life goes on, but always you have in the back of your mind “when will the next missile alarm sound?”

You become attuned to every sound. Is the starting of a police siren or an ambulance siren actually a missile siren? Even something as apparently benign as a car alarm going off, or the whistling of a tea kettle or coffee pot, or sudden whining of a drone overhead, or any high-pitched noise on television–any of these will make the hairs stand up on your neck and your heart start pounding.

You immediately look at where is the closest place of safety to run to.

Such is life in southern Israel.

This morning, we pay tribute to the hundred thousand Israelis who live near the Gaza border and fight to maintain their lives amidst conditions that most people around the world would find it impossible to tolerate. 

*Addendum:

You will never see the “175” number in an official statement. Anxious to prove to the Israeli public that they are keeping the peace, the government and IDF claim that most missile alerts are “false alarms.” Israelstreet’s number comes from residents on the ground near the border who report missile attacks on “rotter.net”–the best source for what is actually happening.