Nalatia from Besedka: I would have been happy to be "yet another strategist" if it turned out that the [Israeli] government had a real strategic plan, it's just that they did not share it with us due to security concerns... like when I was a kid... I thought that the parents know something deep but are not telling me... no, not really...

from lady0_0:
These are precisely the thoughts I had during this month of war.
I have been waiting for the army to do something...
I don't know what.

When I was a kid I had this kind of attitude towards my father, I thought that he will always "think of something", that he knows better, etc.

I was cured from this in the army (it turned out that the healing was incomplete - now I "believe" in the army) - when I had to know better and do something that the others could not.

Just some thoughts...

I am removing the flag.

translated by aphar
original

They went fucking nuts! Five rocket alarm sirens in less than half an hour. I will never be able to finish my cup of coffee...

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

sid75

GUARD ME, MY TALISMAN


Here is the "hero" of my story http://israelnorthblog.livejournal.com/41307.html

translated by muchnik
link to original post here

Every morning, when I wake up by quiet music of my alarm-clock, but not by a siren, I do not remember war. Fresh morning breeze, sun is not too hot, birds chirping, urban noise died down – that`s usual early morning of a usual day… That`s all – till the first cannonade crash. Yes, that is usual early morning of a war time, it even has become a usual thing. Four weeks of firing. The sound of air-craft alarm runs in our blood, it is under our skin, it dissolves in our tissues. It can be heard everywhere – in ambulance sirens and car alarms, in brake chatter, in growling of a starting motocycle, in children`s toys and jackals howling. I expect it every moment, and every time having heard that low, quickly increasing sound, I give a start, and everything goes dark before my eyes.
Currently we are at the middle of the war. We are neither under the everlasting missiles rain, like in Quiryat-Shemona, Naharia, Tsefat and Ma`alot and other frontier towns, it seems, there they have no single safe building, and people become moss-grown in their bomb-shelters; nor we are at south or at the central districts, where life has not changed in general. It seemed to be a 10 days` lull, most of sirens howled not for us, but the day before yesterday we had six rockets with direct hit into living houses, with terrible shrapnel, flying on 100 meters, with three men killed and more than 200 hurt. Haifa has not recovered from that shock still. War rushed, grew up and seized our back with its teeth. We turned our backside to the war, we kind of teased it.

One can soon get used to any, or even to the most terrible conditions of life. Everything can become routine, first or last. The war became routine, too, we do not feel so painfully, so hard, so frightful. Soldiers and civilians are killed. Yes, there are only two or three men per day killed on average, it is not very much. But there are our children, our boys. Every boy – he is someone`s child, every boy has his own name. There are less of us, and every death toll – it`s too much, too insufferable. We are not Russia, Russia can throw dozens of thousand of its boys to a forced-march, without a trace, and then show off it`s care of poor Lebanon civilians – typical, lousy hypocrisy. All this hurts me badly, it is the first time the dying soldiers of the country I live makes me feel that. This country – MY country.
All that`s like a scuffle in a village: two are fighting, dozen of others are sitting on a fence and dangling; they are talking, who had started, and if he should give a black eye for that one, who lashed his balls; anyone shouts ‘ That`s wrong way” and demands to stop the scandal, because to fight - that`s not nice. They all try not to get close to the fighting men, it`s dangerous. One part of the lookers-on knits their noses – “ they do not know, how to fight, beat him from the left! Looser!”, other people are shocked – “ it`s unallowed thing! Stick the rules!” The friends stand behind two fighters, they wait for a backfall of one of them, for a moment when they are supposed to join. One can hear different advices from the neighbouring houses – to catch hold of them, to let them have a game of dominoes, and winner will be winner, success is never blamed; another screams, he`ll call police; people next door talk over last fight and make their game of this one.
So let them talk. These two continue fighting. The main thing is– not to disturb them. Because one of them started, and one of them certainly will win.

translation by fineto
original link is here

Nobody loves me, none of the pigs will call me.
The kid has the return ticket on 28.08. I think over its changing for late. Yura and Nina tell me, he is quick to grasp German, they suggest that he will enter local school.
The kid learned the song on German “Nobody loves me, none of the pigs will call me.”
He has been not at home for 3 weeks. I has not cooked anything all this time.
I caught the perception of fear and fix it, fear, which I always drive to our district with. I look at our house – do we have a place to come back?
Accidentally I noticed, that the marks for the last exam appeared in the university site. I should call Ilya to his unit, get his password and check also his mark, but I`m afraid – what if he failed and I should tell him it? Later, when I called him and got to his voice mail, I understood suddenly, that it was not that thing I had to be afraid of. But he recalled soon, he got good mark, so my fear was vain.

translation by fineto
original link is here

History of my userpic.

Lately, a lot of people ask me what is written on my new userpic.
Let me answer this question.

It’s in Hebrew, it’s pronounced “le miklat” and it means “to the bomb shelter”
Nowadays there are so many signs like this around my house.
My userpic is a picture of one of those signs.



translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Haifa. Beit Galim district. After siren alarm.

August 11, 2006



There was a hole in the ground here less than one day ago. Decorative trees cut with shrapnel, broken flowers, garbage, thrown away by the explosion waves and broken windshield glass
Only one day has passed - now only this flag reminds of the deadly rocket.
Municipal government of Haifa puts enormous effort in cleaning and restoration of the city. Wounded streets and squares are healed as fast as possible. And it feels extremely good.
Horrible hole in the ground is covered, wounded trees are cut and new flowers are already there.

Life goes on.
( Read more... )

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Question

Friends, I posted this question in one community (for Russian-speaking Israelis) but they still have not published it yet :) But I want to know.

My question is – I want to donate blood. But I work during the days and it’s not really convenient for me to go searching for blood station in Haifa... Do you know any places where I can donate blood at night, let’s say after ten o’clock? Or tomorrow – I probably be in the center of the country during the day. Can I donate blood there (it will be Saturday)? And what does this procedure involve?
Thanks in advance :)

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Continuation of the last post :)

OK, I went shopping on Wednesday morning – to buy food, to the bank, some other chores... I left my house shortly after ten o’clock in the morning... People from Haifa could already start laughing... I’ll explain it for out-of-towners :) there were three sirens during the hour when I was walking down Hanita Street :) By now I intimately know two storage places and one garbage area of the store :) :)))

However, I still managed to buy food. But I didn’t go to the bank – I met my neighbor and she told me that during the rocket attacks everyone is suppose to leave the bank building (!). I imagined what I would feel in a situation like that – and decided not to go to the bank ...

The smoke rises far away like a wavy cloud,
Khaiber(Iranian-made rocket) or “Katyusha”(Russian-made rocket) – it’s hard to see,
And planes started ascending in the sky...
Soon enemy will think of me :)

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

They get closer to us, every day and every hour. Today our small town (it was relatively quiet here) was hit in three different places.
I was at work at that time (as a matter of fact, our clinic is right halfway between the two spots where rockets exploded). Nothing unusual, routine procedure – we heard the siren on the radio, shouted “Siren” to warn customers and run to the bomb shelter. The explosion occurred immediately after that. It was so loud that we started yelling. It felt like the explosion was right behind the wall. Everyone reached for the cell phones, but there was no cellular service, and landline phones stopped functioning half an hour before the rocket attack. Of course, the radio didn’t tell the exact locations of the explosions (for security purposes) but very soon customers and personnel started calling friends and relatives and found out the places of rockets’ landings. My mother was able to reach me. Someone told her that the rocket exploded in the building on the main street. Our clinic is the newest building (only one month old) on the main street of town. I was lucky to call her before the lines were disconnected. Our cleaning lady was less fortunate. Her son called her and said “It landed very close to our house…” - and then the phone went dead. Poor woman immediately fainted.

News channels revealed the places of explosions only two hours later. Two rockets landed in open space, and in the third case – two wounded and several people in shock (the rockets hit a new house, fortunately not on the main street but two blocks away).

translation by lesoto
link to original post here

The least we can do for the man, who sacrificed his life in such a heroic fashion, is to tell his story.

Major Roi Klein, the deputy batallion commander of 51th batallion of the Golany infantry brigade, from the Eli settlement, was the highest ranking officer between his soldiers in Beit Jbeil. During the combat, he noticed a hand grenade thrown at his men. Since there was no time to evade the effect of the upcoming explosion, he jumped at the grenade so as to block the shards and thus save his men. His sacrifice was succesful. His men, who thus survived the battle, told later that he cried out "Shma Israel" as he jumped at the grenade.

Roi Klein, a real hero in the age of anti-heroes worship, was burried at the day he turned 31.

It is told of him, that he was an excellent saxophone player and a brilliantly spiritual man, who completed cum laude his engineering degree. He hiked with friends in Afrika, he had a captivating laughter. All his friends say he was a quiet, gentle man. His widow wishes their children to grow up just like him.

May he rest in peace.

Instead of lighting a candle, please pass the story on. He deserves much more than that, but that's as much as we can do.



Translated by: dimrub
Original (n Hebrew) is making rounds.

I went to Ulpan (language classes for new immigrants) with one of the fallen soldiers...
Another rocket attack in Haifa.
It looks like this horror has no end.

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

My ear is hurting.

The rocket was flying so close to me and her metallic noise was so utterly poisonous so human body became filled with tragedy. The tragedy that this silly pipe with a diameter of 122 millimeters (half of one inch) causes. Then we heard dry, impossible to tolerate noise and wailing of cars that were parked nearby. I immediately reached for my camera. I wanted to get out and respond to this with the meanest photoflash.
Hmm... And how many photoflashes I should put here in my journal so I could have responded adequately to every rocket that exploded on my land?
Thousands, and thousands, and thousands...
No, let those stupid pipes of hatred to rest in our sand and our swamps without signs of remembrance.
I like much more to photograph poisonous sea creatures: orange, green, white and pink ones...
Five attacks, destroyed house and several wounded, not counting my ear that is hurting from this war. By the way, if the left ear is going deaf temporarily - what does it mean?
This is our everyday life. It's nothing really interesting to talk about.

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

There were four sirens already after I posted the last post. Four rocket attacks.

Up until 2 p.m. there were 97 rockets that exploded on Israeli soil today, including 5 long-range missiles. As a reporter on TV Channel 10 put it "those rockets have range of 100-110 kilometers (60-70 miles)".

It is also expected that Prime Minister of Israel would declare of start of a big infantry offensive and expected number of casualties on our side.

And another siren starts wiling.

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Our time.

Author: ella_la

I have never thought that the word "war" could become a part of my life.
We live in "quiet" Ashkelon but in the North where a lot of my beloved people live; deadly rockets are flying in the sky.
One story about our difficult time has warmed my soul and made me feel better.

Our close relative from Maalot (a small town very close to the border with Lebanon) finally agreed to move away from there. It's a dire situation with public transportation in that area, so I offered her to take a taxi and compensate her for the fare. It turned out that there's a posting on the wall in her apartment building offering a free ride to anyone who wants to leave the dangerous area. Later on we learned that there's a guy called Roman who drives elderly people for free away from the northern towns. Our aunt said she needed a ride only to Tel-Aviv (roughly half way from Maalot to Ashkelon) where I could have picked her up and drives her further south. But he insisted to drive her all the way to the doors of our house in Ashkelon. That time he also drove three other elderly people - to Kfar-Saba, Rishon-le-Tsion and Rehovot, all of them to their final destinations. At three o'clock at night. And he went to his work in Petah-Tikva at 7 o'clock in the morning (he works as a technician).
Next day I called him to express my gratitude and admire
- But I didn’t do anything extraordinary.
- But you help people. And you are a part of some sort of organization?
- No, I do it all by myself.
- Are you religious?
- No...

Sometime long ago I was visiting one of Tsefat's art galleries and couldn't take my eyes away from a picture of Moshe Raviv (he is the only student of Kandinsky). The picture was called "Stairway to Heaven", the image with lots of different interpretations. I thought that the picture was about the fact that not every ascend is necessary a way up. You can spend the whole life climbing stairway that goes down.
That is exactly what is happening with those who pay too much attention to overt expressions that are part of every religion.
Roman Goltsman from Petah-Tikva is a very religious person to me He does not need to wear a yarmulka, go to the temple to pray or express any religious attributes.
His religion is something unquestionably genuine. Or maybe need to help someone is going to be a religion of the future?


translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

ffffuck...

Why ain't I a crazy photographer or a maniac who never goes out without his camcorder?
Such a precious sight now will go undocumented and will perish for the posterity...
A bunshee (perhaps a twentieth that day) is whailing, the kid is in the shelter, me - in a bow tie and an underwear stuck at the balcony on a table - so what? The safest spot of them all. So that I can see you better, my child :-)

And I see it clear as daylight coming towards me. I can clearly hear the whistle of its flight. I realize that it flies straight at us. For some reason I freeze at the spot, can't move at all. No sense of danger whatsoever. And I see it land across the street (there are hostels there for the seniors). Thumps into the ground near a house - and just lays there without exploding.

Anyway, I couldn't have taken a picture. It takes time to tell the story, but in reality it all happened in no more than two seconds time.

Translated by: dimrub
Link to the original post: here

Insufferable cruelty

I watched video, which had been made by a crazy man, he was leaning out of the window during the siren howling. The siren was really insufferable. I made volume more and more. And again more, till I heard my husband`s tramping. He came from the balcony to take me to the bomb-shelter. He said – such a strange siren it was. He was eager to kill me, I think.

And here is requital. It is the first time that siren men me at the most inappropriate place – in WC. I hesitated for a moment and then decided to continue, I took the risk to pass away to the eternity with dirty bum. I heard a child was shouting loudly “Mummy”! My God, children had remained still? Our siren had shut up, but the neighbouring one was howling for a while. How we had to interpret that – had we already been allowed not to fear, or it just broke? By the way, I don`t remember the sirens to howl on Independence Day so artistically. It had another pitch and our emotions were not the reason.

The friend, who works at Rotshild`s (hospital), told me, that during the siren howling all their people rush to the parking to watch the missiles falling, instead of being to the bomb-shelter.

Another siren met us near the red light signal. A car raced without slowing down, and we also made a sudden turn, passed two red lights behind the houses. The town traffic lights are turned off at all.
We heard by the radio that missiles were in Haifa. The only number in Haifa, which responded, was Ilya`s, but the reason was – he was not at home, he was on draft, tsav 8 ( call-up paper). He said that he was safe, at the base, but I didn`t believу him, they all says the same.

Our neighbours from the 1st floor came back, a big family with a lot of children. They had been stuck in Beer-Sheva for a month.

My darling, forgive me for that pictures. May be, it is cruelly, but I believe you to want to see these pictures very much.
( pictures )


translation: fineto
original link:here

Today father of the guy whom Igor (my husband who was killed) tried to save.

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Conversations on the staircase and other silly things.

- I almost got back to my room when it started wailing again...
- I had just enough time to write only one word. And it was “if”.

I am at work.

It is 1:30 pm now. There have been 7 siren alarms already during the 5.5 hours of work. And three of them during the last hour. We have a TV here; we watched news at noon and at 1 pm, and a lot of other stupid things. Report about a long-range rocket that exploded in the sky over Haifa, and then Oprah show again.

They attack us with rockets. And, according to the military intelligence, they will continue shower us with rockets up until 3:30 pm with interruptions.

translation by lesoto

link to the original post here

Notes and references

When people tell me in a tragic voice to "hold tight" I am tempted to inquire "what should I hold?" - and the connotations are... yeah...
Today we had a coffee with a neighbor in the front yard. Hot coffee, a cigarette, a conversation with someone intelligent, decorated by screeching rockets - very romantic, I am telling you.
Helicopters are flying too close and automatic gunfire is heard. That worries me a little bit.
I attached the flag to the user pic and now I am wondering whether that was silly or not. Well, peer pressure, group mentality...
Maybe I will remove it. Or maybe not.
Chances are I will vacillate - as a Libra should - and, eventually just drop the user pic altogether.

[the references are to Russian pages that discuss "abstract humanism" - the philosophy that allows europeans to ignore millions of dead in Congo and Ruanda and weep for a 100 dead in Lebanon; a humorous report from a bomb shelter; and a report by an evacuee from Haifa]

translation: aphar, link to original here