The Times of War
Discover more from Oren Cohen
It all began on Saturday morning. The hour is 6.30 AM, and I’m awakened by a strange sound I have not heard in a long time—a siren.
My father was already awake, so we huddled in the shelter after waking my mother. Israel was under attack by thousands of rockets, but we didn’t know, at the time, that this was a cover for something much more grave. Thousands of Saboteurs infiltrated the border in what would be described as the most significant intelligence failure of the century and massacred innocent Israeli women, children, and men.
I live in Tel Aviv. I wasn’t anywhere near the danger of physical encounters with terrorists, but I have a lot of family in southern Israel. And they were much closer to all the action.
As of writing these words, there are more than 1300 deaths on the Israeli side. At least 260 of those were attendees of a peace music festival.
The Palestinian side is also not doing great. Israel declared war against Hamas. This is an act that has not been done in 50 years. And Israel only exists for about 75.
Innocent Palestinians are caught in the crossfire. About two million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, nearly half of whom are children. No matter how they feel about Israel, many of them are innocent. And they’re trapped. Israel blockaded Gaza for about 16 years following suicide bombings that killed innocent Israeli people in buses, restaurants, and dance clubs.
I’m no politician, and I’m not about to pick a side. All the violence on both sides just saddens me.
The problem is that a lot of misinformation is circulating around the web. My only is that intelligent people like you, dear reader, do not take anything they’re being told about the war at face value. Some of the footage you see on Social Media is years old. Some of it is outright fake. Look out and do your research.
As for me, I’m relatively safe. Tel Aviv has experienced only sporadic rocket fire up until now. This could change as things escalate in the coming days - and things will escalate before they calm down.
I’m sure you’ll understand why I don’t really have many updates for you. This week I spent most of my time in front of the news. Anxiety won for the most part.
Hopefully, this whole thing changes soon, and we can return to some form of normal life.
I do have one update for you today…
I’m an author now!
My book - How to Interview Your Favorite Creators - is now available on Kindle Unlimited! If you don’t have Kindle Unlimited, wait for tomorrow, as a free promotion will begin on Amazon for a few days!
That’s all for today, folks!
Take care,
Oren