A dear friend and I caught up with each other by phone this morning. I told her about my grandson blowing up tunnels, and she told me about her granddaughters’ boyfriends in Gaza, and how the girls are living with a daily sense of terror over what might happen.

“I just think I’ve had all I can take,” I said. “All those photos of those beautiful young girls killed on October 7, and then every, single day, more photos—six, seven, eight—of our beautiful young men killed in Gaza. I just don’t have any more room in my heart for more sorrow to enter. It is full to breaking. I can’t read any more stories, read any more names, see any more photos. Maybe tomorrow.”

She agreed. “I think we’ll be living with what is happening to us now for the rest of our lives. It’s going to be part of us, our history. And it’s going to take many years to come to terms with it. Every single one who was killed is a whole family destroyed: parents, siblings, grandparents, friends. So much sorrow.”

“It’s the new normal. We aren’t ever going to be able to go back to where we were before, are we?”

She, post chemo, and thank G-d doing well, has a ton of medical tests during the next few weeks. “Just because of the security situation, that doesn’t mean life stops.”

So true. We still have our doctors’ appointments, surgeries, and mammograms. Except now, the only doctors left in Israeli hospitals are Arabs, because the Jewish doctors have all been called up.

I have so many questions that have no answers.

Why, when it is so clear that Hamas is stealing all humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, are we still agreeing to keep letting it in? Why isn’t anyone demanding that an equitable distribution system be set up? Why doesn’t anyone—America, the UN, even the Palestinians—care?

Today, A Gazan child, Achmad Brecha, was shot in the head by Hamas in Southern Gaza for taking supplies from an aid truck commandeered by Hamas. In revenge, his Gazan family set fire to a Hamas police station and set tires burning, publicizing the photo of the Hamas policeman responsible and vowing revenge. Videos of Hamas shooting into crowds of Gazans forced to steal the aid packages actually meant for them are also all over the internet.

Does absolutely no one care? Not even the Harvard protestors?

Certainly, the Arabs don’t care. A new poll conducted by the Palestinian Research Center shows support for Hamas has tripled in the West Bank since October 7. If elections were held tomorrow, Hamas would win by a landslide both in the West Bank and Gaza.

Can anyone explain to me why these people, who have seen their lives reduced to poverty, hunger, misery and death by Hamas, still feel this way? Are they simply imbeciles? Or does fanatic hatred destroy a person’s common sense and even the instinct for self-preservation? Even the Nazis became a little less enamored of Hitler when Dresden, Hamburg and Berlin were bombed to hell.

Can anyone explain to me how the warm endorsement by Ismail Haniyeh of the UN Secretary General and the UN’s latest proposal has failed to arouse any sense of disgust or irony, let alone protests? Can anyone explain why the UN should not be shut down and all its members and representatives sent packing, the building torn down to make way for a soccer field?

Can anyone explain why Al Jazeera is allowed to keep broadcasting news supplied by terrorists? Why the NY Times rehired their “reporter” who proclaimed Hitler his hero?

Today the recently passed law requiring the country of origin for produce sold to Israeli consumers went into effect, allowing Israelis to avoid, for example, all products from Turkey. I guarantee I’m not buying a matchstick from Turkey. Ever.

Hezbollah is apparently pulling back some of its forces from the border with Israel in wake of determined and fierce IDF attacks, including the Redwan forces. For those unaware, the al-Hajj Radwan Force (also spelled Redwan or Ridwan) is a special operations unit of Hezbollah trained since the 1990’s whose main mission is to infiltrate Israeli territory, especially the Galilee and northern Israel, and attack in much the same way Hamas did in the South. Obviously, they are of special concern to the IDF.

Early reports leaked to Israeli websites say that a new Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire has been transferred to Israel. The agreement is similar to that which Israel proposed last week and which was rejected by Hamas, including the release of 40 hostages, including all remaining women hostages, men over sixty, and all those injured or requiring medical treatment. In return, Israel would halt fighting for one or two weeks. Other parts of the proposal allegedly include the exchange of dead bodies, and—if you can believe it—the release of all Hamas prisoners taken in the current war being held in Israeli jails.

I find that impossible to believe, especially since not a day goes by that Netanyahu doesn’t reiterate that we will keep fighting until we are victorious. We are not letting the Nokhba forces, the animals who committed the atrocities, out except at the end of a rope, or after a firing squad dispatches them to their (hopefully ugly) 72 virgins. To make sure their last moments are perfect, IDF women soldiers must do the shooting because according to the terrorists’ beliefs no virgins await a shahid killed by a woman.

Perfect.