The sirens are blowing again. Yet another rocket attack is launched on my city, Haifa. Shivers run down my back. No matter how many times I hear the siren, I can't get used to it.
I am sitting in the bomb shelter and looking at my children. My thoughts wander off to my son Asaf, who is not affected anymore by these Middle Eastern conflicts.
Asaf was killed on March 5, 2003 - he was almost 17 years old - by a suicide murderer who boarded Haifa's bus number 37 and exploded, killing 17 people. Nine of the victims were school children aged 18 or less.
Asaf is now safe from rockets, missiles and other flying bombs. While we sit in the shelter, his tombstone is standing outside, defying the flying destruction to come and hit it.
I look at my two boys playing and watching TV in the bomb shelter and think that I will not allow anything to happen to any of my children ever again. I then remember the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and the faces of their parents I saw on TV. They were being interviewed and talking to their children's kidnappers. I try to imagine what they are going through and I just can't; the thought of a parent who doesn't know where his child is, if he is being tortured, if he is wounded. Does he have food? Is he tied up all day long? Does anybody speak to him? Can he sleep? Does he know what is going on?
My head and body are filled with endless thoughts that have no direction, numerous questions that have no answers, and internal pain that won't go away no matter what.
I hope that one day their sons will come back and that terrible pain that accompanies them today will go away -- that their family will be happy again. The moment in which the kidnapped soldier will enter his home again and hug his mother and father is worth all the hours my children and I have spent in the bomb shelter.
Israel has been living for the past six years, since the withdrawal from south Lebanon, under a false peace and a fake quiet. We thought that if we complied in full with United Nations Resolution 1559, then the other side would also comply. Israelis thought that if we withdrew, we would not be considered the aggressor, and that the other side would act accordingly.
But all that proved to be a set of false assumptions, which blew up right in our face. It surprised us that the Hizbullah terrorists came over the international, UN-approved border to kill, wound and kidnap soldiers on a normal patrol.
What were we thinking, allowing the Hizbullah to build up its forces on our border and import thousands of missiles from Iran and Syria? It is those missiles that are now causing so much damage and are killing people in our cities.
It is also very hard for me to see the casualties in Lebanon and to hear that children are being killed there. My sensitivity and pain at hearing about killed children do not stop at the Israeli border. Every child who is killed brings back memories I want to forget about the day I was notified that my son was dead.
I look at the TV and see the military forces continuing the operation to clean south Lebanon of the terrorists that took the land and its population hostage - hostage to their agenda and to their hatred. I look at the young soldiers facing such a big challenge and pray that they all come back safely.
The strength I and my fellow Israelis have - the strength that enables us to sit with our children in the shelter, the strength that allows the military to do its job and drive out every terrorist from south Lebanon - comes from the knowledge that we are right, that we are for life, that we want to live, that we seek true peace and wish no harm to anyone.
We only want to have our small country, raise our children and live in peace with our neighbors - all our neighbors.
I am sitting in the bomb shelter and looking at my children. My thoughts wander off to my son Asaf, who is not affected anymore by these Middle Eastern conflicts.
Asaf was killed on March 5, 2003 - he was almost 17 years old - by a suicide murderer who boarded Haifa's bus number 37 and exploded, killing 17 people. Nine of the victims were school children aged 18 or less.
Asaf is now safe from rockets, missiles and other flying bombs. While we sit in the shelter, his tombstone is standing outside, defying the flying destruction to come and hit it.
I look at my two boys playing and watching TV in the bomb shelter and think that I will not allow anything to happen to any of my children ever again. I then remember the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and the faces of their parents I saw on TV. They were being interviewed and talking to their children's kidnappers. I try to imagine what they are going through and I just can't; the thought of a parent who doesn't know where his child is, if he is being tortured, if he is wounded. Does he have food? Is he tied up all day long? Does anybody speak to him? Can he sleep? Does he know what is going on?
My head and body are filled with endless thoughts that have no direction, numerous questions that have no answers, and internal pain that won't go away no matter what.
I hope that one day their sons will come back and that terrible pain that accompanies them today will go away -- that their family will be happy again. The moment in which the kidnapped soldier will enter his home again and hug his mother and father is worth all the hours my children and I have spent in the bomb shelter.
Israel has been living for the past six years, since the withdrawal from south Lebanon, under a false peace and a fake quiet. We thought that if we complied in full with United Nations Resolution 1559, then the other side would also comply. Israelis thought that if we withdrew, we would not be considered the aggressor, and that the other side would act accordingly.
But all that proved to be a set of false assumptions, which blew up right in our face. It surprised us that the Hizbullah terrorists came over the international, UN-approved border to kill, wound and kidnap soldiers on a normal patrol.
What were we thinking, allowing the Hizbullah to build up its forces on our border and import thousands of missiles from Iran and Syria? It is those missiles that are now causing so much damage and are killing people in our cities.
It is also very hard for me to see the casualties in Lebanon and to hear that children are being killed there. My sensitivity and pain at hearing about killed children do not stop at the Israeli border. Every child who is killed brings back memories I want to forget about the day I was notified that my son was dead.
I look at the TV and see the military forces continuing the operation to clean south Lebanon of the terrorists that took the land and its population hostage - hostage to their agenda and to their hatred. I look at the young soldiers facing such a big challenge and pray that they all come back safely.
The strength I and my fellow Israelis have - the strength that enables us to sit with our children in the shelter, the strength that allows the military to do its job and drive out every terrorist from south Lebanon - comes from the knowledge that we are right, that we are for life, that we want to live, that we seek true peace and wish no harm to anyone.
We only want to have our small country, raise our children and live in peace with our neighbors - all our neighbors.