Update from Israel

Dear Gerry!

The situation here has calmed down somewhat, though not completely. Our troops pulled out from Gaza last week. Families who live in southern towns returned to their homes in hope of normalization, but for a while Hamas defiantly continued shooting rockets into Israel’s territory. They do not give up their demands of opening all the crossings with Israel and Egypt, building international port and airport in Gaza and release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners. From the last midnight both sides agreed for another three-day ceasefire to continue the stalled talks in Cairo. We pray and believe for right outcome from all this, so that Hamas would not be able to rearm and civilians would receive due help.

While Israel is slowly returning to its routine of everyday life, there are 67 homes where life is not the same. There is a big hole that nothing can fill. Sixty four of our best sons gave their lives to protect the land that God has given to this nation. One of them was  a messianic believer. There have been complaints during the last decade that the Israeli youth is not as patriotic as it used to be. This conflict has proven the opposite. We pray for the soldiers who have returned from the battlefield, who have seen their friends die at their side. It’s hard to imagine the aftermath of all they have seen and experienced. We continue to pray for all the soldiers who are wounded and need a miracle of healing. One of Maria’s friends is still in serious condition; he has a deep shrapnel wound in his head.

Internally Israel is back on its usual track of arguments, multiple opinions and criticism. One side says that Hamas has received a serious blow and is desperate to present to Gazans some kind of achievement; others are convinced that Hamas is still going strong and the operation did not damage it enough. There are voices of frustration about government’s and army’s decision to end the operation too soon. Another topic is all kinds of commissions that will be formed to probe the “war crimes” in Gaza.

The IDF leaders presented the government cabinet the cost of occupying Gaza – the operation would last up to five years, cost the lives of hundreds of IDF soldiers and Gaza civilians and billions of shekels every year, would danger the peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan. Cabinet univocally rejected the plan.

After leaving Gaza, some international journalists have been bolder to report about rocket launching from highly populated civilian areas, even the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, who gave shelter to many Moslems, told that Hamas used his compound for shooting rockets. Surprisingly, BBC and NYT consider the number of civilian casualties, presented by the Gazans as not trustworthy. Among civilian casualties there is a non-proportionally high number of males, ages 20 – 29, a group that constitutes only 9% of Gaza’s population. Hereby I’d like to add the statistics published by IDF: Since the beginning of year 2014, 4,680 trucks carrying 181 thousand tons of gravel, iron, cement, wood and other supplies have passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Look, what could have been done with all this material:

What alarms and worries us most that while the West is on uproar about the “Israeli war crimes” in Gaza, ISIS is advancing in Iraq killing brutally Christians and other minorities. Also in Syria, within one week more than 1500 people have been killed. Who cares for them?

With love,

George and Sarah