It has been a few days since last we connected. There were the holidays, and honestly, it has been a roller-coaster of great joy, deep sorrow, and everything in-between. I was exhausted.

I spent Sukkot at my daughter’s house and to my great and everlasting happiness my soldier grandson was also there with his wife, as were his brother and his wife, and his sister. To actually spend time with him for whom my thoughts and prayers have been directed first when he was in Gaza blowing up tunnels and then in Southern Lebanon where he was doing the same job, felt like a miracle. But it wasn’t. The miracle was that he and his whole unit have been released and sent home!

A great relief. And then, after the first day of the Sukkot holiday was over to find out that Sinwar, that evil man, had been shot down like the rabid dog he is, was truly a moment of great happiness for all of us.

But paradoxically, after the euphoria following the death of Sinwar, who was running around trying to save his sorry ass and was killed ignominiously by a private who had no idea who he was, a depression set in. What does this mean for our hostages? Will there be someone to negotiate with after Sinwar’s death? Are they in less danger, or greater danger? Everything that happens in this war goes back to that.

Despite the great successes the IDF has had in destroying terrorists and their infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon, the war is still being fought furiously. Sirens are going off non-stop in places like Safad, Haifa, and the Galilee. While very few missiles and drones have killed or injured Israelis, there have been several incidents that were very worrisome: The direct explosion into the dining room of an army base in Benyamina that killed four trainee Golani soldiers; the direct hit on a senior living facility in Herzlyia, and the hit on the home of our Prime Minister. While the last two had no casualties, the fact that enemy drones could be aimed so precisely and arrive without any warning sirens was devastating. There is a hole in our defenses that must be plugged.

This is an odd moment in our history. While on the one hand, it is a furious war in which we have been engaged, and in which we have been spectacularly successful –  hopefully enabling us to reshape the entire Middle East, making our place in it much safer – on the other, we are caught up in mourning for thousands of our people who have been taken from us, and continue to be taken from us on a daily basis as our war casualties mount, each one a stab in our hearts. It is often overwhelming.

Today we lost a legendary hero, General Ehsan Daxa, commander of Division 401, a Druze from Daliyat al-Karmel. It is an incalculable loss. Daxa and his two senior officers had left their tank and gone to an observation point in Gaza when a bomb exploded, killing Daxa and injuring the others. Our deepest condolences to the families.

Two things are helping me to get through this terrible time. One was the recent interview with a young Yazidi woman who had been a prisoner of ISIS since the tender age of 11 who was sold to Hamas and kept prisoner in Gaza for many years.

Recently freed by Israel, Fawzia Amin describes the unimaginable evil of the people we are fighting, because make no mistake, as Amin tell us, there is no difference between Hamas and ISIS. One example (warning, the following is not for the faint of heart) Fawzia describes being with a group of fellow women and girls, some of them young mothers, and being deprived of food for four days. Finally, they were fed what they were told was rice and meat. Starving, they devoured it. Only afterwards did their captors tell them gleefully that they had eaten the flesh of their murdered babies.

This story clarifies for me the stakes involved in this terrible war, and reinforces the holiness of the sacrifices we in Israel have been called upon to make in order to defeat Hamas/ISIS/Hezbollah/Iran. Our fallen soldiers are angels. My people are heroes. My country is righteous. Our enemies are evil incarnate. Please tell this to your local college students on the march with their useless slogans and the keffiyahs wrapped around their stupid heads.

The second story was related by a survivor of the Nova slaughter, Millet Ben Haim, who was interviewed by the Shoah Foundation. Millet described the evil of Hamas, but also the goodness of the people who were escaping with her. How people helped each other, gave each other water and food, risked their lives to save others. “We are a good, just, kind people. Our country is filled with love,” Millet explains. She’s right. Israelis want to help, to heal, to comfort. This truth also gives me strength.

My grandson told us a story about blowing up a safe found in a tunnel along the border in Lebanon. The safe contained piles of money in every currency and gold. “What should we do with it?” the soldiers asked their commander. I was hoping he was going to distribute it evenly among them so my grandson can buy and apartment… but no. “Burn it!” they were told. And that is exactly what they did.

Did you know that Hezbollah, a terror organization, has Lebanese banks that issue credit cards and make financial transactions with banks around the world? Did you know that much of their money is from drug trade, human trafficking and other illegal activities? Israel Today: “Hezbollah’s ‘Good Loan’ association has 31 branches throughout Lebanon, of which 14 are in Beirut, 10 in southern Lebanon and 6 in the Beqaa area. They have additional assets beyond the branches themselves. Tonight, for the first time, Israel is is set to go after Hezbollah’s financial assets. Civilians have been warned to stay far away from these financial centers.”

Israel has already bombed bank vaults in Beirut containing this filthy cash estimated at half a billion dollars with additional gold and jewelry that is now burned to a crisp. After the war is over, it will become an urban legend and a source for adventurers to recover. The attacks in Dahieh have already begun as I type this. May it all go up in smoke and do no more evil!

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