At 2PM today, the “Mexican Hat Dance” song startled me as I was blissfully transitioning between my first and second REM cycle. It was my program coordinator on the phone. Things are heating up in the South, he said, and OTZMA is looking into alternate arrangements for its participants who were slated to live and volunteer in the areas now susceptible to rocket fire from Gaza.
And so, as much as I tried to placate your fear and concern for my safety by telling you it was only your ignorance and paranoia, it seems, in the end, you were right.
On Dec. 19, Israel’s 6-month ceasefire with Hamas ended. During those six months, however, Hamas, a terrorist and political organization that rules the Gaza Strip, continued to fire rockets daily into towns close to the border, most notoriously in Sderot, a town of about 20,000 people 2 miles from Gaza.
(Hamas claims that it reduced its rocket fire from 100s a day to 15-20 a day, while Israel, as part of its failed obligation, did not fully reopen the border crossing to allow for the free flow of food, oil, gas, etc., upon which the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians depend.)
On Dec. 27, after both parties failed to renew the truce, Israel decided to take preemptive action and bomb strategic targets in Gaza alleged to be centers for Hamas terror activity. About 200 Palestinians were killed in the bombings, among them high ranking Hamas leaders, Israel has reported. The death toll is now about 375 Palestinians and two Israelis.
In response, Hamas has amped up its rocket fire into Sderot (about 70 per day), in addition to firing into cities that Hamas had previously spared.
These new Hamas targets now include communities where OTZMA was planning on stationing its volunteers. Ofaqim, for example, a town about 12 miles from Gaza in which I am supposed to volunteer and live, saw two rocket crash down in a residential neighborhood yesterday.
Am I safe? Basically, yes. The farthest a missile has hit so far is a town 18 miles from Gaza. Tel Aviv, near where I am now, is about 36 miles from Gaza. There are riots and protests in Israeli Arab towns, but I have crossed them off my itinerary.
I am now on break from my program, and this morning I saw my sister off at the airport after she extended her Taglit-Birthright trip for five days to spend with me in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
On Sunday, we have a meeting in Beersheba, which was originally meant to prepare us for our new lives in the Negev. Now it seems like it will be a meeting to tell us where exactly our new lives will be. This month, I and 14 others volunteered for two weeks in the army, so we may be dispatched to an army base again if the war persists.
I appreciate your concern and I hope you are praying for all the innocent people entangled in this war. Email me (brianf08@gmail.com) or call 972-52-604-1787 with any questions.
Thanks for reading.
