It finally happened! On the 101st day of the
war, after waiting nine weeks, I saw my youngest son. How euphoric it was to
hug him! There have been other times I haven’t seen him for that length of time
but never when he had been on the battlefield.
My husband and I met him at the Kesem Junction and drove
him all the way to the edge of Nirim, a village nine kilometers from Khan Yunis,
where the tanks awaited him. We had almost two hours to be together.
My son looks the same, but I doubt if he is the same
person he was before he entered Gaza. I’m extremely proud of him. At the same time,
I’m saddened that he has had to kill other human beings. Tragically that is our
reality here.
Shortly after we left the Kesem Junction, we began
hearing sirens and saw dozens of emergency vehicles moving in the opposite
direction. Clearly something had happened. That something was a terror attack
in Raanana*.
Just like the pogrom on October 7th, this
attack, a combination of stabbings and car rammings, focused on the elderly and
children. Edna Blaustein, aged 79, was murdered. Seventeen were injured, seven
of them children and teenagers.
As we continued on our way and drew closer to our destination,
we passed villages we had never heard of before October 7th. Kfar Aza, Alumim, Beeri, Reem, and the infamous
site of the party. All seemed so pastoral and peaceful. I guess they were until
they were not.
The evil of that day will haunt us forever. And so our soldiers
are fighting. They are fighting to bring home the hostages and destroy Hamas. They
are fighting to rid the world of such terrible evil.
I understand that, which is why I am proud of all of them.
I pray constantly for the success of their mission. Please bring them all home
safely in body and spirit.
*For those who still buy into the idea that if Israel
would just give up all of the West Bank there would be peace with the Arabs, I
want to point out that Raanana is in pre-67 Israeli borders.
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