A Heartfelt Cry from a Resident of the City of Lod, Israel

LOD — (VINnews)

The following piece has been submitted to VINnews. The author Sara Lippman details the current situation in Lod, Israel. 

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My dear friends, every day I receive dozens of calls and messages from you,
just to ask how things are in Lod. So I decided to answer everyone at once.

I want to name my post:
“Lod on Fire or Report from the Front Line.”

I think that all of you are more or less aware of what is happening in our
country, I don’t want to give any political assessments, I’ll just tell you
about our daily life.

Our mornings begin with questions in local groups: how can we get out of
the city? do doctors work? a child has high fever, how to get to the
doctor so that they don’t kill us on the way? where they are shooting
today? what’s on fire? where is being smashed? etc …

The rockets, which fall on our heads at the same time, already seem to be
just child’s play. It is much more terrible when every second you expect
the thugs to break into your house and start killing your family. You can
hide from missiles in a bomb shelter, but how to protect yourself from
those who break into your door, and it is just you against them? On the
very first night in Lod, several houses were evacuated, in which Arabs and
Jews lived together. When the rioters came, Arab neighbors guided them to
Jewish apartments. People in the middle of the night jumped out into the
street with children in their arms, they were forced to urgently evacuate.
Does this remind you of anything?

Our husbands have not been sleeping for several nights, they guard our
homes, and next to them are our sons. They have no weapons, they are
absolutely defenseless in the face of thugs armed to the teeth.
Settlers from Judea and Samaria come to us and stand next to our men, this
is our protection. The police and the magawas ( boarder police) are not
managing.

We see our cars and synagogues burning. People burst into burning
synagogues to save sifrei Torah ( Torah scrolls).

All night long automatic gun shooting does not stop. We cannot sleep. All
Lod residents inform each other in various media groups what is happening
on this or that street, where the crowds of pogromists have moved at the
moment. We are afraid for our children, who are with us at home, and for
our men, who are now trying to resist the crazed crowd on the street. Now
we have again been warned that pogroms are expected after Friday prayers,
be prepared ( it was written on Thursday).

We live in constant fear, and
mind you, all this is not happening somewhere in Syria, or beyond the
so-called Green Line. All this is happening in our country, in its very
center, a 20-minute drive from Tel Aviv.

Do you hear this on the news?

NO!!!

It all started from our city of Lod. We cried out for help! Nobody heard
us. Now pogroms are already taking place in all Israeli cities with a mixed
population.

If you have not yet understood, we have a war, a war for survival, and
missiles falling from the sky will soon seem to us the lesser of two evils.
If the easy going residents of Tel Aviv think that this misfortune will
bypass them, I am afraid they are deeply mistaken. The situation is
already getting out of control, and God forbid, the whole country can set
ablaze.

Remember, when people were evicted from Gush – Katif? The people there
shouted: “Come to your senses! What are you doing? If we are not there,
missiles will fly to the center of the country.”
That is what we are now witnessing.

People! Do not be silent, tell the whole world what is happening here.
The world must know the truth!

I want to end my post with the famous words of Martin Niemeller.
“When the Nazis came for the communists, I was silent, I’m not a communist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats, I was silent, I am not a Social
Democrat. Then they came for the trade unionists, I was silent, I am not a union
member. Then they came for the Jews, I was silent, I am not a Jew.
And then they came for me, and there was no one to protest. ”
Alla Zohar