They are flying Sunday night back to their homes 6,000 miles away, both literally and figuratively, home from the two-week respite they have enjoyed in America to their tension-filled existence living next to people who would like nothing better than to see them and their families breathe no more.
They will be returning to Israel, to kibbutzim and moshavim in the Eshkol region adjacent to the Gaza Strip where every day includes the unknown. Will a rocket be fired at them? Will terrorists emerge from an as yet undiscovered tunnel? And, the newest concern, will a sniper snuff out a life from a distant, camouflaged perch?
Each year for the past six, Westchester-based Shalom Yisrael has brought to America eight women engaged in first responder trauma care activities from the settlements near Gaza (for 23 prior years wounded veterans of the Israeli Defense Force and injured civilians were guests of the program). As with the previous five groups, this year’s crop of valiant women possess no extraordinary powers. Except, maybe, a determination to withstand the pressure and tension of living in a free-fire war zone simply because…it is their home. They are no more stoic about it than the residents of the canyons around Los Angeles who endure mudslides and fires only to rebuild. Or those along our shorelines who clean up after hurricanes ravage the coastlines they love. Or the hearty Plains people of tornado alley who emerge from underground shelters to resurrect their lives. It is their homes, and though Mother Nature might be the bane of most American disasters, fellow human beings traumatize the Israelis.
A two-year-old study on post traumatic stress disorder, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that Israelis, in general, recover from catastrophic events much quicker and easier than other nationalities, most likely because every day they are confronted by terror, or, at the very least, the thought of terror. If so, then the Shalom Yisrael guests would be at the top of the charts.
Fifteen seconds. If they are fortunate that is how long they have to seek shelter once an alarm sounds, if it sounds at all, before a deadly rocket lands. Some can run to government-funded safe rooms in their homes. Others, those living more than four and a half kilometers from Gaza, have safe rooms only if they paid for them on their own, at a cost of roughly $10,000. In those areas, the only government-provided security is a shelter for kindergarten children.
The Eshkol district, home to some 14,000 residents in 32 communities, important to Israel as the provider of 60% of the country’s produce, has suffered more rocket attacks than any other region. The vaunted Iron Dome defense system cannot protect them. They are too close to Gaza. Eshkol shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt.
And yet, like those before them, this year’s Shalom Yisrael guests would welcome a return to the pre-Hamas status of Gaza, a time when commerce and people flowed more freely across the border, when Palestinians worked in their fields, when they visited the beaches along the Mediterranean. They are less strident than the Israeli government and its leadership.
It’s warm in the Middle East. As the climate heats up so often do cross-border tensions. Shortly after the 2014 Israeli women returned to their communities along the Gaza Strip all hell broke loose. Missiles and rockets dropped from the sky. From beneath the dirt of their farmlands terrorists emerged from tunnels. Among the visitors from Eshkol this year was the widow of one of the last two Israelis to die in the 2014 conflict, casualties of a rocket barrage one hour before the cease fire was to go into effect. Pain is still evident within her. But she perseveres. As does Israel.
The links below are to previous posts about visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and Gilda’s and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region along the northern edge of the Gaza Strip:
http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2014/05/ordinary-lives-lived-by-extraordinary.html
http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2014/05/ordinary-lives-lived-by-extraordinary.html
