Just when you think things are coming to an end; that you can look up at the blue sky and smile, and stop worrying, some drug-crazed maniacs 2,211 kilometers away decide to send ballistic missiles into the center of Tel Aviv.

Twice this week, without much warning, the Houthis in Yemen managed to cause extensive damage to a school and a public park in the center of Tel Aviv. The first missile struck at night in Ramat Gan, when of course the school was empty, still managing to destroy it to the point where kids had to be sent elsewhere or learn remotely the next day. The second, and most recent ballistic missile, also caused extensive damage, this time to a South Tel Aviv public park, which was left cratered. Medics said 16 people were lightly injured by shattered glass, including a three-year-old girl, while 14 were bruised while rushing to shelters.

IDF interceptors, both above and below the atmosphere, apparently weren’t effective. Israeli military said that it had implemented lessons learned from failed attempts to intercept the missile.

The IDF isn’t sitting back. Extensive, intense airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen were carried out. The operation wasn’t in response to recent attacks but had been in planning for weeks, and jets were already in the air when one of the missiles was launched. Dozens of planes struck Houthi targets along Yemen’s western coast and, for the first time, in the rebel-held capital Sana’a.

My friend and editor, Noa Mannheim, from the Israeli publishing house Zmora Bitan, wrote a Facebook post comparing our lives to those described in the book A Hundred Years of Solitude where people regularly live amid magic realism, ghosts moving in with them and sitting down to breakfast, strange happenings taken into stride on a regular basis. I agree with her.

My son Akiva, who lives in Tel Aviv, told me when the sirens went off for the first missile on Thursday, he rushed to the municipal shelter only to find it locked! I suppose the City of Tel Aviv also thought the days we’d be needing shelters were over. Fortunately, he was at my house on Shabbat when the second sirens went off and the missile landed.

We seem always on the cusp of victory, of finality, of a return to normalcy… and never quite making it, not completely.

But the signs are promising. People are going up north again, the B&B’s, or tzimmers as they are called here, are again open and welcoming guests. The National Parks are opening in the North, including one of my favorites the Hula Lake Park, which has been closed to visitors for 14 months. Run by the KKL-JNF Jewish National Fund, it has been closed since October 7 2023, whcn Hezbollah started its rocket attacks. The Times of Israel reports that park employees living near the Lebanese border who were evacuated from their homes, eventually returned to work, under fire, needing to run to bomb shelters with some regularity.With its water and wide expanses of green, filled with thousands of migrating birds who stop over to rest and feed on journeys between Eastern Europe or Western Asia and Africa, it is one of our favorite places, and one we were used to visiting often, espcially my bird-crazy grandson Lavie. Its opening is another little sign, that we are moving closer to what Israelis want desperarely, normalcy. There is a very popular song which has a refrain: “It will be okay. Soon it will be okay.” That’s what we are all waiting for.

But that can never happen until the last of our hostages return and the fate of the others are determined. No one outside the country can understand how vital this is to our national life and well-being. There are posters of them everywhere, photos everywhere, on street corners, traffic circles, roads, private homes. It’s a national obsession. Of course as long as Hamas is still in power – and make no mistake they are thanks to Joe Biden and his convoys of riches entering the Gaza Strip daily giving Hamas gangsters new life blood as they loot and sell the contents – there will be no peace for anyone in Israel.

In the meantime, we continue to put one foot in front of the other, to try to have faith in our leadership. We will be lighting Chanukah candles on Wednesday. Light in a time of darkness. Our traditions give us so much strength. I am making a Chanukah -Thanksgiving party on the first night of Chanukah. My whole family is coming, except for my granddaughter who is an IDF officer and can’t get away. I’m going to package up some food for her, my darling girl.

And I will keep praying that this terrible war in which God has helped us to survive so many attempts at annihilation, granting us breathtaking victories in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Judea and Samaria, will finally allow us to put the final nail in the coffin of our enemies so we can really, truly, celebrate a complete victory of light over darkness. Happy Chanukah!

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