The first thing we hear about is the call-ups. “So and so's kids were called up.” A trickle of information comes through. There was a breach, a massacre at Be'eri. Soon we know that every soldier was called up, not just a few specialists. The airport is closed. It's not long before a whole tranche of the community has disappeared, on Shabbat. This is a religious community. With each call comes a little bit of information. It's big. We have no idea how big.

Mothers are beside themselves. One had both sons called up. The younger was here for the holiday with his girlfriend, also called back. The other, a reservist, was called up. This is a much rarer occurence. Parents give their kids the car: “Just tell me where it is. I'll pick it up.”

It is life and death. The Rabbinate says we should have our phones on. There are those whose jobs are such that they must always be connected, even of Shabbat.

We've been here 19 years. These are kids we've known since they were in diapers.

Shabbat goes out and we open our devices. The news is more devastating than we could imagine, and it gets worse by the hour. Two hundred dead, then three, three fifty. I go to clean my son's boots. His flight back to Israel was cancelled and he's doing everything he can to get back to his unit. We're picking him up at the airport—with a home cooked meal—and taking him straight to his unit tomorrow. By the time I sit down in front of the computer again, it is six hundred dead.

How?

How could this have happened? It is fifty years since the Yom Kippur war, seared into the memories of everyone who was there, a topic of remembrance and discussion this whole year.

We have technology. We have intelligence. We have a high-tech wall. It is incredible to us that this could happen at this scale at this notable time.

A day in and the recrimination has started. Netanyahu, it is alleged, propped up Hamas in the face of Fatah to ensure there would be no unity that could develop into a Palestinian state. Arik Sharon should not have given up Gaza. Maybe they knew something was brewing, but didn't want to be seen as aggressors, so they waited for the eruption, but weren't ready for the scale.

But then What Could We Do?

The world hates us. My hometown papers carried two Associated Press articles on the matter, twisted as the AP always is to form some kind of equivalency and blame this, at least in part, on the Jews.

The United States has abdicated its role. The Taliban is crying out to Hamas “Let us help. We'll wipe out the Jewish state for you.” I'm sure they'd be happy to send all the ordnance that Biden abandoned in his disastrous exit from Afghanistan.

And that six billion released “for humanitarian purposes.” To the Iranians, wiping out Israel is about as humanitarian as it gets.

What We Won't See.

Israel sustains
attacks every day. In 2021, for instance, there were 6633 attacks in Judaea and Samaria alone: 61 shootings, 18 stabbings, 5532 rock throwing incidents and 1022 Molotov cocktails thrown.