Tel Aviv in more peaceful times. Photo (cc) 2019 by RaphaelQS.
My friend Dina Kraft, a former Northeastern colleague who now lives with her husband and two children in Tel Aviv, has written a harrowing first-person essay for the Los Angeles Times about life amid the violence that has broken out between Israel and Hamas. She writes:
I hadn’t prepared anything to take with us, such as pillows or even water. At first I (naively) thought we’d be back upstairs again within a few minutes after the Iron Dome missile-defense shield knocked down any rocket that might be overhead. This was Tel Aviv, in central Israel, considered far from the reach of projectiles from Gaza….
Someone took out a Monopoly game and some of the kids started playing. The adults tried to keep things light with nervous jokes. Neighbors swapped news from updates on Twitter and news apps. I thought about all the previous wars and tense times during which I had interviewed families in shelters on the northern border with Lebanon or along the southern border with Gaza, spoken to kids playing cards and other games, and how here I was, becoming part of that scene I had once covered.
The BBC is reporting that the fighting continues to intensify, with 119 people in Gaza and eight in Israel being killed since Monday.
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Marcus J Breen
I am less interested in the privilege of Israelis Dan, even former colleagues.
The discussion this morning on GBH with Adam Rielly, Peter Katsis and Joe Matthew about Senator Ed Markey and the opposition on social media to his “equal handed” approach to the current Israel-Gaza conflict was excellent. Please offer a perspective on the Palestinian position as well.