By Forest Rain
Sirens throughout the day, but not here. It was a
beautiful Saturday (November 16th) and we were trying to enjoy the wonderful
weather, lovely people, interesting things – although we knew that others were
not.
I was hearing the sirens and interceptions in the distance. Israelis closer to
the border with Lebanon were hearing sirens and rockets exploding. Huddled,
waiting to see if the rockets would hit them. Or the shrapnel. Waiting for the
bombing to end.
I was waiting for the bombing to begin. Eventually, it would come to Haifa too.
And in the evening, it came. Sirens. Down to the
shelter.
Explosions, so loud they shook the house.
Not just interceptions. Impact too.
But where?
We got videos of the impact site on our phones.
Something was on fire. A different neighborhood in Haifa, about a 10 minute
drive away.
A cousin lives there. We called to ask if he was ok –
he wasn’t at home but was worried about his dog. Neighbors had called him to
say that his house was damaged. We promised to go to see what had happened
until he could arrive.
Getting into our car, we could smell the fire.
When we got to the neighborhood the police had already closed off the section
of the street where the missile hit. It smashed the beautiful Templar-period
building used as the neighborhood synagogue – directly across the street from his
house.
Firefighters were there, dealing with the fire.
Ambulances were evacuating people. I hoped that no one was injured too badly.
The Electric Company was there too. I didn’t know if the darkness was because
the trees that had fallen in the blast pulled down lines or because the
electricity needed to be turned off to keep people safe. Or both.
Instead of going through the crowd – people who lived
there, rescue workers, media both foreign and local, and the curious – we
approached the apartment from the back.
We walked through the darkness, the only lights from
the rescue teams. Glass from the windows that had blown out of the houses
crunching on under our feet. The sound of water pouring down from the roofs.
Water tanks had been destroyed by the explosion… thank goodness the electricity
was off for the area.
We got to our cousin’s house a moment before the Home
Front Command rescue workers broke down his door. Their job is to go door to
door, make sure no one is trapped inside, and help evacuate people. If they
knock and there is no answer and they can’t contact the owner, they break down
the door.
We told them that he wasn’t home and no one else was
inside, that he was on the way. They marked the apartment as cleared and went
on to check the rest of the building.
Neighbors who had been out came to check their apartment. As they surveyed the
damage one of them broke down from the shock, crying, “Everything is broken.
The walls, my paintings, my piano, I don’t have anything left.”
The blast broke the windows of their apartments and
flung large pieces of shrapnel inside. There were holes in the walls, even in
the piano. It was hard to see the full extent of the damage in the dark.
Everything was covered in dust, smelled of the fire outside, and felt like the
end of the world.
Objectively, not everything was damaged. A lot of
cleaning up needed to be done. Windows and holes need to be fixed. Original
artwork cannot be replaced but we told him over and over until he could breathe
again: “It’s just property damage. Thank God you weren’t home when it
happened.”
He nodded in understanding but still had a hard time shaking the hysteria. There’s something deeply shattering in having your sanctuary smashed. You have to pull yourself together, grit your teeth, and begin an uphill battle to put the pieces of your life back together. It’s hard to even know where to start…
Our cousin arrived. We were all relieved to see that
the dog had taken shelter under the bed so she wasn’t hurt when the windows
blew out. She came out shaking but wagging her tail.
We made a quick survey of the damage and helped him
pack some things. It would take at least a few days to make the place livable
again.
As we left the building, we saw others leaving. An
exodus of people carrying small bags with some things, their cats and dogs.
In the morning it would be possible to come back, understand the true extent of the damage, and begin repairs. Thank God it was “just” property damage.
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