Amir Cohen/Reuters
TEL AVIV—The rocket that hit the next street Saturday morning made a sound like nothing else. It seeped into the body from the feet, up the spine, and finally into the head, as I heard my daughter’s quiet, fearful whimpers.
It was a sound that drowned out the incessant Israeli–Palestinian chatter flooding the global media; drowned out the condemnations by Western celebrities; drowned out the struggle of the West on how to place us, Israeli Jews: whether we are the descended from white colonialists or a beige victims of persecution. For a moment, this sound even drowned out the desperate, horrific posts by Palestinian Facebook friends from the Gaza Strip, which will soon become a lot worse.
Hundreds of Gazan insurgents have broken through the Israeli perimeter fence and have taken over kibbutzim, towns and settlements murdering almost 200 civilians and kidnapping dozens more. A relative was snatched away from his fallen Kibbutz. The husband of a member of my native kibbutz has been hiding in his home since morning, contact with him has been lost. There is street fighting in the town of Sderot, and soldiers are deliberating plans of attack on their own conquered bases.