On Thursday night, three teenage boys disappeared.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4530177,00.html

I try to put myself in their families' situation - the general idea is all too familiar. It's 11 o'clock at night, and I see that my 16 year old brother isn't home yet. So I wonder if I sould lock the door. Is he even coming back tonight? I can't remember. Maybe he's staying at school until tomorrow. Or maybe he's out with friends and will be back late. I'll text him, then. He doesn't reply. So do I wait? I text again. Then, being a big sister and all that, I start to worry. So I call. He doesn't answer. My stomach gets all jittery
But then I tell myself that I'm being stupid and he's probably just fine. He's with friends, he doesn't hear his phone, and who wants to call his big sister, anyway?
And in the morning, there he is - safe and sound.

But what if he weren't? It's every sister's nightmare. Not to mention a parent's nightmare, but I can't yet put myself in those shoes.

It's so, so close to home. My sister and brothers hitchhike all the time in that area - apparently these boys were waiting right where my sister usually catches a ride when she has to get to Jerusalem. And although I don't know them personally, I know friends and members of their family.

At this point, we know that they've been kidnapped - probably by Hamas (and not just some lunatic working on his own). The military and secret service are busy doing everything they can to get these kids home safely. The rest of us are praying.

The palestinia response makes me sick -
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4530177,00.html
(Never mind the Israeli report - I'm Israeli, so of course I'm biased - but the video is made by Palestinians, just watching it is enough.)

Hello Again

Hi there blog.
I know I've been ignoring you for a long time now, and that we probably can't just pick up where we left off, but I'd like to get into the habbit of using you again. I like this platform betten than Facebook - it feels more personal. Facebook statuses get lost in the huge amount of data floating around there, but blogs make for a comfortable, easy place to write away from all the noise.
I thought of opening a new blog, one that will focus on topics that interest me, or maybe just one topic, and it'll be that kind of blog... But I like this one. I like that I started it eight years ago planning Sarit's birthday party, and that i called it "Defying Gravity" because I was obsessed with Wicked at the time. I may have been much younger (we all know what a difference a few years can make at this age), but I like those old parts of me.
So, I may eventually change the name, or the background colour, or the font or something, but lord - give me strength to return to my blog!

The beautiful city of Be'er Sheva, which I hope to soon call home

I've missed my blog. I'm coming back. I'll start with a post that I wrote in November of 2012, but apparently never published.
___

Hello dear blog, I've missed you.
Operation Pillar of Cloud has had me once again wishing for a platform I could use to write down those stray thoughts, and here you are.

When Ahmad Ja'bari was killed - eliminated - last Wednesday, the Home Front Command issued an immediate order to close all schools within 40kmk of Gaza, my university included. Thousands of students poured out of the campus and most of them went home to their parents that very evening - the trains were full, people were sitting on the floor just to get home, and in general there was crazy traffic at the city exit.
My roommates and I didn't know what to do. So far there hadn't been any missile warnings, and besides - the dorms are made of concrete and are pretty safe, so we thought we would stay and hang out, do some homework or something, until classes resumed. But by 21:00, four sirens later, we were all on our way home.
It's been a week now and there have been no classes since. With the way the ceasefire looks now, it's hard to know when we'll be back at school. But never mind that, what does a student do with a surprise week of vacation? Homework would be a good place to start, but I'm no good at working without a timeframe - I mean, how are you supposed to leave things to the last minute if you don't know when the last minute is??