We received the report half an hour after we left home, on our way north for a short vacation. Two young women were found dead in a vehicle in the Jordan Valley. Shortly afterward, it became apparent that they were not in an accident – but rather a terror attack, a murder in cold blood, with a confirm-kill made by the terrorist. As a reporter in Judea and Samaria, I was punched in the gut within a few minutes. The two girls live in Efrat – my community.
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Anyone who hasn't experienced something like this will never understand the rending feeling accompanying the preliminary information you receive, the names that begin running through your head. This family has two daughters that fit the described age, and that family has a similar white vehicle. And your stomach turns over. And then the names arrive, and suddenly the girls have faces. You saw their father in the synagogue last Shabbat. One of the girls walked by you several days ago. Your body may be in Haifa, but your heart remains at home.
A little more than a month has passed since the devastating terror attack in which Hallel and Yagel Yaniv were murdered, and now two more sisters join them in the cycle of bloodshed. They join more and more murders, more and more shootings.
They tell us the roads are safe and that the IDF is in control of the situation, but stones continue to be thrown in Hawara. When Israelis dare to act in response, they are accused of committing price-tag attacks, claiming that the attack did not justify using their gun, and they are prohibited from protesting.
I was a young kid twenty years ago in the Second Intifada. They gave us excuses back then too. They said that they gave the Palestinians an ultimatum; they claimed we reached a "hudna" (truce in Arabic). Now, too, there is the feeling that they are giving us excuses while the facts speak for themselves: two deadly shooting attacks in "the quiet region" of the Jordan Valley. A drive-by shooting in "the quiet region" of Gush Etzion. It is time you wake up and smell the smoke. Your home is burning around you – and you dream about peace and quiet.
With all due respect to the judicial reform or any other reform you want to pass, now is the time to give our attention to security. While government members are tweeting, Judea and Samaria is on fire. People leave home without knowing if they will make it back, just like twenty years ago. While you fight over important national missions that need to be promoted during peacetime, the war is being waged almost entirely unchecked around us.
I spent the last Shabbat with my family in Haifa, but my thoughts did not leave my home. Teenagers are at the roundabout underneath the Zayit Neighborhood, crying and singing. Adults and teenagers are gathering at the "Zayit Raanan" synagogue that mourned Ari Fuld several years ago and now will be burying two of its daughters. The blood of the murdered cries out from the ground. Enough.
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