The Army Listened…Sort Of

At 12:54 p.m., Palestinians launched rockets at Ashkelon. Over 20 rockets were fired at Israel already today. At almost exactly 1:00, four more were launched.

Israel had already announced a three hour break – from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. break. We won’t fire into Gaza in order to allow people to go out and shop and store up on good and essentials. This is what a humane society does – though it obviously will mean allowing our enemy to regroup, reposition. Not to be outdone, the Palestinians announced they too would hold their fire during this time, and then they let loose with a barrage of rockets right before the temporary “ceasefire” went into effect.

I want to talk to Elie. I need to hear his voice. I know that he’s safe – in the sense that he’s in the middle of a war zone while rockets are falling, but not injured. That is one great truth in Israel. If a soldier is injured, or worse, the army moves fast to get news to the family.

I heard a mother talking from the hospital where she was sitting by her injured son’s bed. She talked about how she’d heard he was injured. The boy had called his mother so she knew he was hurt but not severely. Driving to the hospital, hours away, was still a nightmare, but a controllable one because she’d heard directly from him. So, not hearing is really good, really really good.

Except…

I don’t know if he is tired. I don’t know if he might be getting sick from lack of sleep. My imagination is going wild. He had a cough last week and it’s been cold at night. I’ve never been inside one of these armored personnel carriers – and my guess is that he’s basically living inside of it. Is it cold inside? It’s Wednesday already here in Israel and I haven’t heard from him in more than 4 days. Yesterday, I joked about taking a 10-minute “Call Your Mother” break.

I’m hoping that maybe the army heard my silent wish and will let the soldiers call home. I’ve tried several times and sent messages. Each time, I immediately get his answering machine. The phone is turned off. I know he’s trying to save his battery. Maybe I’ll try again now.

Wait…it’s ringing…

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