Coming home to war in Israel

It was just last Wednesday that we boarded a flight to Madrid for a week’s vacation during the Sukkot holiday. Little did we know that just three days in, our country would be at war.

As most Israelis, we all have our different telephone apps which alert us to a moment-by-moment account of what is happening, including the death toll, those injured, kidnapped and everything else in between.  

In my 30 years living in Israel, I have never seen anything close to this and, needless to say, we were devastated to hear the stories of what was going on, especially to our former kibbutz, Reim, where we were once members, near the Gaza Strip. In just a few hours, we’d discovered that a woman we knew well had been murdered at close range by terrorists who didn’t even have to exert any effort, since her door had been open. That is how most kibbutz members have lived – in total security, much like the “unwalled villages” described in Jeremiah 38.  

Next, we heard that the son of a woman we’d just buried several weeks before, after dying of cancer, had also been murdered.  We could not fathom the depth of grief his father and sister were going through, just having lost their wife and mother. 

It wasn’t long after that we heard about the devastation of our neighboring kibbutz, Be’eri, where an estimated 50 members were herded into the common dining room as hostages by terrorists who had successfully breached our southern border. The massacre of innocents, both in Be’eri and Kfar Azza, were beyond human comprehension, as well as the horrific, brutal slaughter of 260 young people attending a nature concert event, the majority of whom were gunned down or taken captive.  

But it wasn’t just the killing, it was the gleeful exhilaration which these terrorists openly expressed as they raped and violated bodies of beautiful young people. The accounts were so troubling, but they had to be read, so I read as many as I could.  

Each day that we tried to continue our sightseeing, the heavy weight of what was happening in our homeland was a massive burden to carry along with us to every site, the most bizarre being at the Palacio Real where two enormous statues of Isabella and Ferdinand, graced the long corridor. It wasn’t lost on us that these two were responsible for the exile and systematic torture and murder of Jews who refused to forcibly convert to Catholicism.  

That was the most surreal part of all. Here we were, safe and sound in the country which sought to annihilate Jews just some 600 years ago, while, at the same time, the Jewish homeland was experiencing the worst acts of barbaric terrorism since the Holocaust and the Inquisition. Nothing could have been more bizarre when trying to digesting that bit of irony.

Anxious to get back home, we were certain that our flight would not be affected, as had so many others, which were canceled, because we were booked to return on Israir Airlines. But since Czech Republic airplanes are used by them, they, too, canceled a day before our return, so we were left with the prospect of possibly not returning home as our travel agent frantically looked for an alternative solution.

We were overjoyed when she notified us that she booked us on an El Al flight the next evening, letting us know, immediately after saving our two seats, that the flight was totally booked. She called it a miracle and, indeed, it was. Once we got to the airport and boarded the plane, we were told that the flight had a special status of being a rescue mission since no other airlines were flying into Israel. In short, it was up to our Israeli airline company, El Al to do its utmost to bring home all Israelis who were stuck abroad, with no other way to return home.

The pilot let us know that we would be returning to a country at war, something each of us knew all too well, but that we would, at least, rest in the knowledge of a peaceful flight, which it was. None of us knew what to expect or what awaited us upon landing, but it is now the next day, and everything is eerily peaceful, at least from the center of the country where I live, despite warnings of a planned, coordinated attack scheduled for this Friday the 13th, which other Arab factions are expected to join.

Unless you live in one of the affected areas, in the southern part of the country, everything pretty much looks and feels the same. I haven’t yet been to the supermarket, where I am told I will find mostly empty shelves, but we were blessed to have done a large shopping before we left, so nothing is needed at the moment.

We are happy to be in close proximity to our family and friends who have borne the brunt of these last few terrifying days, and we look forward to seeing them soon. Two of our grandchildren are serving near the Gaza border and will, undoubtedly, be part of any ground incursion into Gaza when it happens. We, as so many others, will be praying for their safety and protection, along with all of our other precious soldiers who are very aware that they will be literally laying their lives on the line, knowing full well that they could become the next casualty of a war that shouldn’t have happened, had we been better prepared.

Our oldest grandson, who was supposed to get married on Oct. 20 near his kibbutz in the south, will, instead, be burying many of his friends who were killed, while others he knows were taken as hostages at a party which he, himself was supposed to attend but at the last minute skipped when he got a great weekend vacation deal up north. We knew that our daily prayers for family safety had been answered!

The unfolding of events, over the next few days and weeks, is uncertain, as well as how this country will, forever, be changed, but one thing that is certain is the promise in Psalm 121:4, which reads: “He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” No one else has that distinction of a 24/7 watch over their land.  

To some, it might look as if someone fell asleep on their watch and, perhaps, several did – at least that’s the way it appears, but it wasn’t God Almighty who, although still allowing humanity to operate within the confines of “free will,” both for good and for bad, has assured us in Jeremiah 31:36, that Israel will not cease to be a nation before Him, and that is the great hope in the midst of this horrific, unpredicted war. 

Please pray for the peace of our beloved nation, which is being ravaged by those who hate the Jewish people and their right to exist in their ancestral homeland, because for those who pray, there is also a promise for them of blessing and prosperity by backing the very same plan of the One who has preserved us throughout 2,000 years of persecution, destruction, exile and wandering.

With His help, this, too, shall pass!