So I plan on writing a entry soon about some of this past weeks awesome happenings, including a local wine festival and the awesome life I am living, but it seemed important to write about this week's more notorious happenings.
After a weekend in the Galili on a retreat with most of the ITF groups we returned to Be'er Sheva around 1 am and ready to sleep. Unfortunately, that peaceful rest before another long day of training was interrupted by the local missile warning sirens. Luckily my roommate Alex heard the alarm and woke me up. We sprung into action, trying to rally the rest of the floor to the bomb shelter but with little success. A measly 8 of 26 people made it to the shelter before the "dangerous time" ended, making our emergency response a complete fail although nobody was injured.
Yesterday we found out that the rockets were launched from southern Gaza by a non-Hamas Jihad group, most likely in retaliation to some anti-militant action taken by the Israeli military. One rocket landed on a house in Netivot and the other in Be'er Sheva open space with no deaths, merely injuries primarily from shock. There has since been a constant flow of helicopters over our building in a Northwestern direction toward Gaza (on is literally flying overhead as I write this) and Israel retaliated against the civilian-targeting rocket attack. Hopefully the violence will stop at that, but life has no certainties in this country, but I assure you I am completely safe.
The attack served as a reminder that we live in a place with a calm demeanor on the surface and tense readiness brooding underneath. In the days since the attack I have been living my life much as before, yet in a way I 'm glad it happened--without experiencing the uncertainty personally it is impossible to understand the Israeli psyche.
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