July 17, 2006
Hello friends
We continue working on an emergency footing. Today being unusually dark, with a thick blue aqueous mist minimizing visibility all around, and beyond that the sporadic discharges from the nearest battery of 155s in the northeast. At about 7 AM it looked like the sun was about to break through, glistening within a frame of somber looking clouds turned ashen, somewhere above the artillery pit near Wadi Abu Mohammad. However, that mass of involute blue just as quickly crowded it out, like an unfortunate spectator crammed by the jostling crowd at a football match, just as the crucial play is made on the pitch. So the day has thus far remained a sullen wintry sketch.
Yesterday Noam managed to escape the confines of the shelter where the children he tends have been hemmed in since the start of this conflict. They traveled for the day south to an amusement park in Rishon LeTsion. Gilad arrived, highly motivated because the reddening litchis in the yard were ready for picking. The industrial food plant [Presko] where Gilad is employed in Eilon has been closed since hostilities began.
Around nine in the evening Zed gave me his imploring look, it's those eyes really, and I couldn't forfend the notion to walk him, even though he had spent time with Gilad in the late afternoon. It was quiet enough, as we cautiously strolled along the back road which stitches Eilon with its suburban Van Gogh appendage. A prop plane drawled across the inky sky. An occasional muted blast from a sole artillery piece battered the silence. A small dimly-lit glow weakly emanated from the lower slopes of an army encampment near Khoult al-Ful, surrounded by darkness. Flares briefly raised over the sea south of Rosh HaNiqra luminesced for a moment in the yet cloudless sky.
Infrequent blasts from the nearby gun battery continued throughout the night, intensifying just a bit before five this morning. During the night, Hezbollah was busy targeting areas in the Jezreel Valley, such as Afula and Upper Nazareth.
There is a sense of urgency working under the duress of artillery fire, or the collision of hopefully distant rockets in open fields. We learned that the eastern coastal corridor that included Abu Snan, Kfar Yasif and Tel Al came under rocket attacks this morning.
We completed our work speedily. Zohar taking the time to evict a pack of jackal whelps before they could gnaw into any more piping in the Khorshah orchard.
Our friend Bracha was in a cab with Rotem, her two-year old grand-daughter, somewhere in Haifa's northern suburbs yesterday, returning Rotem to her parents in Tel Aviv, when Hezbollah unleashed a barrage of rockets that struck from Nahariya southward. That was our chief worry for the day.
Presently there are fairly distant rumbling sounds southwest along the coast. I notice that work continues unabated in the expanded construction of the Van Gogh homes, with a pile drill making its customary racket, its operator, unperturbed and enmeshed within the general din.
Debby and I would like to express our gratitude to our friends and family for their support, expressed in letters and phone calls.
Love-Barry