"יורד מזמינות"

I'm having a new experience now. Most of my friends have already had this sometime during the war, but not me. Yossi's phone is disconnected until further notice.

Generally in war you want to keep your phone off so it can't be tracked. When the army first went into Gaza all the soldiers left their phones back in Israel and got them back when they came out. But since Yossi never left Israel he's had his phone the whole time - like at the beginning he was on the Lebanese border, so sometimes he didn't have reception, but most of the time I could reach him. Sometimes he was offline for a few hours at a time because they had some mission or activity, but it usually lasted less than a day. Then we he was in Gaza in the summer the IDF already had a proper base there so soldiers could keep their phones.

Now, for the first time, he's offline. It's been three days and it seems like it'll be at least a few more days, possibly weeks. For lots of my friends this was the experience at the beginning of the war. It must have been awful. In a weird way I'm ok with it - it's like it's out of my hands. No news is good news, I guess? What sucks is that the kids can't call him, and I know that for Lavi it's been really hard.

Then this morning I got a message from Yossi's friend from miluim, saying that he saw him and he looks good, and gave me a message from Yossi that he's doing ok and he loves me. Along with a picture - and he really does look good! And so now I'm not sure how I feel? Like, it's good to get a message, makes me feel like people care, and it's a relief to get good news. But now it's like, well how long will it be before I hear from him again?