Shlomi Again

This morning my husband returned to work but only for an eight-hour shift not his normal 12 hours. The work’s bus didn'’t turn up and only half the shift appeared. Many people are home with their children or have moved south.

At 8:45 am a car came round announcing there would be activities for children in the shelters.

At 10 am we walked along to the nearest shelter. The first time we have walked outside (rather then rush to the car) since Wednesday morning. It was already hot and everywhere looked sun bleached.

Unfortunately by the time we got there they had finished with the sports activities and had decided to watch a film. Bad Choice! The children were too restless to sit quietly and the mothers kept walking in front of the screen too involved in their own conversations to consider that they were disturbing the children. After less than an hour my children had had enough.

On our return I checked the news and saw that missiles had fallen on Shlomi. Naturally it would happen the first time we leave the house in days. I had heard a couple of especially loud booms but that has become the sound track of our life, white noise.

All afternoon the booms have been louder, closer, shaking the windows. For safety's sake I insisted the children take a siesta in the security room.

There was relative quiet and for a while I rested as well.

At 4:45 pm my husband came home. So strange to have him return from work at a normal hour.

Within minutes of his arrival the bombardment became noticeably loud, upsetting my daughter. The sirens started wailing and suddenly all the lights went out.

Even though we didn'’t have the aircon working it always seems to get hotter when there is an electricity cut.

We sat around for a few minutes aching to turn on the news and find out what had happened.

The electricity flickered a couple of times and then the TV was working with the sad news that someone has been killed in Naharia.

And we are still hearing the booms all around.

ES