I am writing while planes are flying overhead, as they have been for many hours, perhaps throughout the night. Thank God for sleeping pills that can give me a respite from the tension of listening to the terrible news. I don’t know why there are planes above us all the time here in the North, but I imagine it’s a message to Hezbollah: Beware! Don’t join the war.
I live six kilometers from Lebanon and know that those who live right next to the border have been asked to leave their homes for a few days for fear the terrorist group will enter with the Radwan Force, which consists of small vehicles that can drive almost over any terrain, reach those communities, and massacre families before the military has a chance to get there – just as Hamas did to the Jewish communities next to Gaza.
I was weeping when I drove to bring Ann from Nahariya. I listened to the radio and heard stories of parents crying out to the government to help them find out what happened to their children who attended a nature party in the South. Are they missing? Dead? Kidnapped? One man described the last moments when his daughters spoke to him from the event and said: “We are being bombed, please Daddy, what should we do?”
“Run away,” he responded. “Run to your car.”
“But now there are people shooting at us from everywhere and there is nowhere to hide!”
“Just lie flat on your tummies, close your eyes, don’t breathe and pretend you’re dead,” he told them.
And they did, while he stayed on the phone listening to their quiet breaths, encouraging them softly, until he heard them suddenly taking quick breaths before their phones died. He had no idea where they were.
Trying to escape
Another young woman who lives in my community had tried to escape the scene with her friends in a car while speaking with her mother. She cried, “Mommy, they’re shooting at us, I am wounded, the car has overturned. I’m scared, Mommy, help me, I’m afraid I’m going to die.”
“Stay strong baby, pretend you’re dead, you will survive.” That was all her mother could say, but she has not heard from her daughter since.
These parents are waiting for any piece of information, for someone to talk to them and explain. It’s been 48 hours, they say. What happened to them? Are they being tortured? Raped? Caged?
In the midst of this terrifying reality, our Arab-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian playback theater group had decided to postpone the meeting that was scheduled for last Sunday. I spoke with my Arab co-leader, and at first she said, “Maybe we should wait until things calm down.”
“No, let’s meet today,” I replied, “because it is so important to connect, especially now when things are so difficult.”
She then said, “You know, now I understand why I do not want to meet. I don’t want to meet myself. I don’t want to feel the shame of being connected to the perpetrators. That my people, the people I identify with, whose struggle I support, who could do such horrible things. On some level it is so much easier, so much less painful, to be the victim and receive all the compassion. It is too painful to feel this shame, to see what my people are capable of doing.”
I could not speak for a moment. My eyes filled with tears.
The suffering caused by Hamas
Then my heart expanded. I know that nothing could ever justify the horrendous deeds that Hamas has committed. I also know that I do not want my heart to be closed to the suffering of others, like the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
During the meeting, my Arab Palestinian co-leader asked each of us to connect to our physical heart, our heart that has four ventricles, and to feel what is inside and then share something from it with the others. It was painful to listen, but by the end of the session, each one of us was feeling a bit more hopeful.
This morning, I read a message from another Palestinian friend. She said, “My heart breaks with yours, Nitsan. There can be no justice, no peace, no freedom when weapons become the solution to our grief.”
There are times when we must fight against the evil deeds that people commit, and this is one of them, but I don’t believe that devastating Gaza will ultimately bring harmony and peace. We must find a way to actually resolve this conflict.
The writer is director of the Together Beyond Words organization.