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I got this email, second email actually, from some worried friends in Canada. I just never got a chance to answer and my dear wife (bless her ) forwarded this to me and I of course forgot to answer. Second email came and sounded a little frantic:

Subject: How are you?

Hey,

We emailed wife’s email address but haven’t heard back so we thought we’d try you. Worriers that we are, we want to know that you are both okay and wife’s family is okay too. We can’t imagine what you’re dealing with on a daily, hourly basis, but are horrified by what we see on the news.

Let us know how you are when you get a chance.

Thanks

(friends in Canada)

======================================================

Hi Guys,

We are okay. The news always looks worse then it is, I thought I taught you that

Things are a little tense though I have to admit. We have seen some serious causalities yesterday as you may have heard (9 killed) and the fact that people are getting vaporized on their way to work is more then disturbing. We aren’t used to this
type of fighting and we are paying the price. We are a short distance sprinter that got thrown into a marathon, and we need to adjust our style of running and breathing habits.

I went to my brother in law’s surprise birthday party last night. It was at his home in a small yard and his girlfriend invited a few friends. I didn’t know most of them but it was interesting to listen to the conversations. At some point this guy next to me asked
his girlfriend if maybe they should just crash right here instead of heading back. Turns out they were from Haifa and I realized how close this all was. They drove an hour to get to Tel Aviv earlier that evening - an hour away. The difference is night and day. He showed me pictures he took with his cell of Katyusha rockets hitting the ground while looking from his office. Can you imagine doing that in Toronto. Imagine standing by the window at your office building on University Avenue and watching a car explode as its moving down Queen street.

This guy was born and lived all his life in Haifa and he hasn’t left. He lives in a building without a bomb shelter (which is very
common in Haifa) and he said that the sirens during the day are what disturb and scare him the most. That waiting for the drop 10-20 seconds after the siren and wondering if you’re next.

Yesterday he went to the street corner to get a Falafel. He said he was in mid bite when the siren started and he just threw it aside and ran for cover. “As you walk down deserted streets and the siren sounds, you just see people’s blood drain from their faces, everyone runs for cover and you look up with fear - as if you could see where the next time will be coming from.”

The problem is that the rockets that have fallen have been filled with thousands of tiny steel balls, when the rockets explode they spray everything in a very large radius and so a rocket that lands even 100 meters away is likely to severely injure and kill.
A bus that made it in time and hid under a bridge when the siren went off was sprayed by the pallets and the driver was badly injured, even though the rocket landed a 30 meters away and he was hiding behind the bus.

In Tel Aviv life goes on. We are all listening to the news all the time but keep living as much as possible as usual. There are lots of guests from the North and people have been great taking in friends, relatives and even strangers that just needed to leave the North. I know that Nasrallah is planning to attack south of Haifa. He promised and so far he has kept his word so I expect at some point we will get a few rockets south of Haifa and maybe as far as Tel Aviv. Still, its not going to matter, losing this is just not an option. We will overcome like we always have. It’s not like anyone is going to do this for us

Please send my love to the kids and thank you for the emails - promise to write more often

EB