Sunday 4 January 2009

First day inside Gaza

We certainly have learned our lessons from the second war in Lebanon. Our soldiers have been in Gaza for 24 hours and we've hardly heard a thing. Certainly very few images from inside the strip - we're being told only what we need to know, in contrast with the previous war when we were told too many things that we didn't need to know. This is a classic case of no news is good news, but it is difficult for Israelis who generally like to know all the details about everything. For those of you who don't know, one soldier has been killed, and two (one from Qiryat Gat) have been seriously injured, with about thirty others wounded to various degrees.

This massive call up seems to me to be very strange. Tens of thousands, according to the news. We certainly know plenty of people (and not all young) who have been called up. On the one hand, it could be some kind of bluff to make it look as if we're going to stay in Gaza for a long time, but even for that I don't think we need tens of thousands of soldiers. It seems to me that the only other possibility is that the powers-that-be are worried that we might have problems either on the northern borders or possibly on the West Bank.


It's funny how people react in these situations. Our youngsters all complain that Qiryat Gat is a dead-end kind of place - it has a population of 52,000 but very few places of entertainment, not even a cinema - so their current joke is that we have had fewer attacks than Ashkelon and Ashdod because Qiryat Gat isn't worth wasting a rocket on...


Earlier today, I went to our health centre which is not in town but near Sari's parents' moshav. The people there are mainly of Moroccan or Kurdish origin, and there is little love lost for our neighbours in Gaza. I won't repeat what I heard, but it makes you wonder if there will ever be any hope of reconciliation one day.


As you can see, it's all hearsay today. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

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