.https://michaeldickel.info/2023/11/08/weeks-after-the-massacre/
poems – nov 9, 2023 Read Post »
israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry
israeli politics, my life in tel aviv
Every morning the announcement comes of what has been destroyed the night before. Sometimes it’s
Every morning the announcement comes of what has been destroyed the night before. Sometimes it’s a little old folks’ apartment in Ashkelon, sometimes it’s an elegant house, sometimes a part of a hospital, something the yard of a school. But almost every time, people are not hurt because there have been shelters built into the buildings, or people have been evacuated from the building. Don’t blame Hamas for the small casualties here. They have been arranged years ago – and not with cement donated by foreign countries that wound up being used for Hamas tunnels.
morning – oct 8, 2023 Read Post »
israeli politics, my life in tel aviv
When the hospital in Gaza was bombed on October 24, it took the Gazans minutes to blame Israel and to number the dead at 500. Soon after it became clear that it was a misfired Jihad rocket that hit the parking lot of the hospital and that the number was more like 50.
So who can you believe? I see pictures of kids lining up for water…. but then some of the pictures of injuries and fallen buildings I’ve seen before, and often in other places. there is a disconnect between the photos in the papers and the subtitles.
So what I can vouch for is the number of times I’ve heard a siren in my neighborhood tonight, the number of booms I’ve heard, or the number of times the building has shook, and the evening is still young.
wish i knew – nov 7, 2023 Read Post »
israeli politics, my life in tel aviv
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The 240 hostages in Gaza, the stories of survivors, the vegetables harvested by volunteers – I want to tell you about it all – but I can only show you a tiny piece of it.
I suddenly fell apart at a memorial in the military cemetery this afternoon – after buying so many vegetables from the south I had no energy to put away, and visiting the exhibits of families of hostages. I looked at all the graves of soldiers and saw there was room for so many more….
what is left – nov 6, 2023 Read Post »
blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry
weeks after the massacre
1.
No one tells it yet
Not the whole story
How long would it take you
to speak of your child
wounded in the chest
but still breathing
when her arm
is sliced off?
Ah, how could you tell
since this was
the last sight you saw
before you were slaughtered.
No one tells it yet
how it was
with the pretty dancer
that a piece of her skull
was discovered
weeks later
after she was paraded
face down, naked
in a truck
through the streets
of Gaza
3.
When you find
a pair of spines
and only DNA reveals
a father and son
in a final embrace
incinerated
alive,
your mouth
cannot form
words
poem – Nov 3, 2023 Read Post »
blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv
Ezi thinks that they set the timers for the rockets in our neighborhood on the hour. I think that if it true that the rockets in our neighborhood fall on the hour it is just because they’re in a rush to set the timers and run away.
The frequent use of human shields is another sign to me that Hamas is trying to be very careful – of their own lives. I am watching the filming from Jabalia on BBC – In Israel we can only see the catastrophe from above. But what we see is an underground tunnel exploded and we can’t see the individuals from so far away. These are the people who were warned again and again to leave the area and go to the south, but, the BBC says, some left and returned because conditions there were so bad. Some had told foreign press that they had not been allowed to leave by Hamas. When they did have choices, they were not good ones.
I too feel I am at the front, but I feel I am being protected in every way possible. The sirens, the shelters, the iron dome, the phone calls – all make me aware that there are major efforts made to protect me. The people on the street at Jabalia make it clear to me that they are shields. I pray for them – may Allah have mercy.
on the hour – nov 1, 2023 Read Post »
blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv
when I dance with my husband of almost 44 years, he does everything to ensure that I don’t know the next step, to keep me on my toes, so to speak. He doesn’t do that with other women, and he doesn’t do that in our life, so I think he’s training me for war.
“There’s going to be a war at the end of the holidays!” I’ve said to friends, who didn’t even acknowledge my cry with a question. “Don’t go into Gaza,” I’ve been screaming for the past three weeks, and now I’ve begun to breathe because I see just a bit of logic in our movements. I kept thinking we were like the British Army in the American Revolution, standing in formation to shoot while the wily Americans shot from behind.
All this I learned from getting caught up in the music while getting my foot stepped on repeatedly while dancing with my husband.
I still love dancing with him!