By Carmit Gilad, Project Coordinator ,Kiryat Bialik Partnership 2000

Shalom friends,

I hope you are all well.

Nearly 2 hours ago the first siren of the day went off, followed by another four within 30 minutes. We heard a few falls not so far from us and the radio station we are all glued to while in our secured spaces, "Radio Haifa", reported that indeed there were a few hits in the area. They also passed on a message from the police for everyone to stay in the secured spaces for the time being. However, it has been quiet now for over an hour and, being the bad citizen that I am, I went out of the secured room and on to my computer, which is 5 seconds away – in case another siren sounds. My kids, Omer and Roni (15 and 13-next-week), are watching TV in another room and waiting their turn on the computer; this is pretty much all they can do these days, although they have also put together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle in the past month and have even read a few pages each from books (other than Harry Potter!...)

My mom just called from the kibbutz in the Upper Galilee, telling me that in the past few hours it sounded like "He" (the common Israeli term for Nasrallah) had emptied all his missiles arsenal onto their area. In the Hula Valley and its surrounding there is smoke everywhere, she said. This takes me back to my early childhood, living 500 meters from the Syrian border, spending all 6 days of the 6 Days War in a bomb shelter. This was nearly 40 years ago. We knew there was no total peace in the region yet, but right now it feels like we are back at the exact same spot.

Yesterday, Shabbat, we spent most of the day with my brother and his family at Kibbutz Gazit, not far from Afula and Beit She'an. That region is not completely out of the line of fire, but it is still much quieter than our region. At least we could spend time with family and the kids could go to the swimming pool for some time.

A soldier from Gazit was killed in the past week. This is a small and united community and something like this hurts everyone almost as if it was your own family. It kept crawling back into our conversation. My 16-year old niece told us how she was on a few days trip in the South with her peers. That evening at some point they had noticed that all the counselors were bunched together, looking shocked and confused, and they knew something bad had happened. The counselors then took the kids on some "night activity" while two of them took one girl aside. That girl's brother was killed in Lebanon.

This is what our children's summer break looks like. This is our current daily routine. And it's not over yet – maybe tomorrow, by the time some of you read this, there will be a seize fire. As for right now – another quiet hour went by in the Krayot area. We carry on from one hour to the next.

Be well. Shalom U'L'hitraot,

Carmit