BONITA LYNETTE

In her latest letter home from Tel Aviv this morning, BONITA LYNETTE tells her parents of the emotions Israelis are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. Bonita’s fist letter had over 1 000 reads in 24 hours, her prior one has been the top read so far this week.

See links to all Boni’s letters below 

Dearest Mom and Dad

8:43 am Tenth day of Operation Protective Edge, sirens going all around us. Ran 5 flights of stairs, cup of coffee in one hand, cell phone in the other and another 5 floors of people running too – 1 1/2 minutes to get there – all thinking and feeling the same as I.

Found myself a corner to stand in and start trying to find a phone line available. My children at home in Netanya and the sirens going there too. Feel thankful that we are one of the lucky ones – security room in our home all set up and waiting. 1 1/2 minutes is plenty of time to get there and close the heavy security door without danger. However no connection and no phone lines available.

Look around me and put my arms around my colleague sitting next to me. She is 40 years old, married for the second time and took her 10 years of fertility treatment to finally fall pregnant and bring a son into our world.

Her son is now 1 1/2 years old and she is sobbing. How could I have left him??>> He is in a playschool group – 10 babies altogether.

Pride & Joy

They have three experienced, trained, kind and loving women looking after these 10 children, including Shoshie’s pride and joy.

She looked at me and said “If 3 women have to pick up 10 babies and run into the Security room in the basement of the building every time there is a code red, who do they take first????”

There are other people sitting quietly waiting or the sirens to stop, each one desperately trying to contact husbands, wives, parents, children and of course those that didn’t have the mental energy to even come to work.

As we are sitting here, the news is coming through of 13 terrorists being caught trying to come through one of the tunnels from Gaza into Israel!! After realising they were caught, they re-tracked back into the tunnels and the IDF reacted immediately and bombed the tunnel.

What was their purpose???

Terrorist attack in Israel? Kidnapping our children? We won’t know. It just strengthens the fact that we are at war.

If we don’t strengthen up and protect ourselves accordingly, the next round is going to be so much worse. They will advance their technology and find an answer to the Iron Dome. So the clock is ticking and the questions remain. Will our technology advance to the same extent? Are we able to find a permanent peaceful solution? Will we have to go through all this in another few months, years or whatever? Should our ground forces go in and finish the job? What will be the price?

Our kids are in the middle of their annual summer holidays – what a holiday! All activity cancelled, the beaches empty, the water parks – not a soul. Who has the energy to even think about it? Are we responsible for putting our children in danger?

So I thought that I woke up to a new reality this morning. Eminent peace – talking of a 5-hour ceasefire. Egypt and America making an effort to find a solution. All that I can think of is that from 10:00 till 15:00 – Silence in the Sky. Praying for our leaders to have the strength, tenacity and clarity of mind to find a final solution.

Lots of love, Forever

More letters from Boni to her folks…

• THE LETTER NOBODY WANTS BUT ALL SHOULD READ – week’s top read
• “IRON DOME SAVED ME TWICE IN 2 DAYS – EXPAT”
• SITTING ON BORDER AWAITING ORDERS
• PHONING MOTHERS – ONE AFTER THE OTHER