| He is nineteen years old |
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Excitement and Joy are meted out here like single M&Ms. Saturday night the country was thrown in to ecstasy (not the pills that were just smuggled into the country by a former minister in the shape of M&Ms), by Macabee Tel Aviv's basketball team's win over Bologna in the European Cup finals. The coach thanking God for His help, the country thrown into a frenzy of parties, one in a Tel Aviv park lasting in the early morning hours and consisting of tens of thousands dressed in the team colors of yellow and black. _option_option_optionThen came Sunday. Sunday morning was balmy; it hearkened the day the Likud party members were going to the ballot to vote for or against the Sharon Disengagement Plan. Disengagement from the Palestinian area of Gaza first, leaving settlements, towns and farms that previous governments supported and financed as a ‘security' ring around Gaza, now deemed a security risk. Then came Sunday early afternoon. He is nineteen years old. He is an Israeli soldier in the outskirts near Gaza. He was on duty watching. His post is in a building and the ‘watching' he does is of TV monitors placed at various crossing points in the area of Gaza. She, a social worker who helped people who had lost relatives in terror attacks, was on her way to pick up her husband, a school principal, to take him to a rally opposing the Sharon Plan that meant the dismantling of their hometown of Katif in the area around Gaza. She was 34 years old and eight months pregnant, her children Hila, 11; Hadar, 9; Roni, 7; and Merav, 2, were in the car with her. They didn't make it to pick him up, nor will the ‘make it' to anything else in this world. As the young soldier was watching the screens he saw horror unfold before his eyes. On the Kissufim road, terrorists began shooting at a passing car. Their bullets stopped the car in its tracks. The terrorists then approached and rained bullets at the car's passengers from less than a foot away, a pregnant woman and her four young daughters. He sat there helpless watching the massacre, too far away to do anything but gape in anguish. The number of the victims of terror, those alive and those dead, increase yet again. |
