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Living next to the West Bank account |
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Posted by orange blossom special on Thu Aug 9 17:49:58 2007, in response to Olmert meets Abbas in Jericho, posted by RonInBayside on Mon Aug 6 18:01:35 2007. To further hijack ron's thread :) , which makes it easier since I don't want to spam a bunch of new threads and don't want to just keep it to myself...Jerusalem Post The little pop-pops began this (Tuesday) morning at about the same time that I took my three-year-old daughter to her daycare. I have heard this noise before, many times before. It is the sound of gunfire, and it gives me the chills. Still, I have gotten used to the sound. (Which begs the question of why gunfire should be a "normal" sound on a day-to day basis. But I don't think I am going to go there right now.) Often on summer evenings the sound comes and goes. Sometimes it even penetrates the closed windows of a cold and clear winter's night. The row house that we rented before we bought and moved into our new house across the street overlooked the Wadi Kana facing toward Maale Shomron and the Palestinian towns of Nebi Elias and Azzuon. Very often at night we would hear the pop-pop of gun fire. It sounded so close, probably in part because we were so much higher up with nothing in the way to muffle the sound. We know what this sound is because we call the moked (local army emergency number) to report these sounds and to ask if the moked can tell us what is going on. Often, they reassure us by telling us that the army is conducting exercises in the wadi. They can even tell us when the pop-pops are not live ammunition, allowing me to sleep better at night (though the knowledge that they have to conduct the exercises should be enough to keep me awake at night.) Sometimes we are told the Palestinians of a particular village are celebrating a wedding – they shoot guns in the air to celebrate. Sometimes, the dispatcher tells us that they simply do not know where the gunshots are coming from or why. Those are the bad nights. This pop-popping has been going on all day. One neighbor called the moked, which told him that the sound is coming from nearby Azzoun, which is actually where it sounds like it is coming from to me. The gunfire, according to the moked, is not in celebration of a wedding, as we are used to (but which makes sense since I can't imagine anyone got married before 7 in the morning), but rather are from high school students celebrating the end of their bagrut (end of high school, regents) exams. Yes, high school students. ...... And in case we weren't sure, the shooting of an Israeli driver on Route 6 near the Horshim exit (crossroads to Petach Tikvah and Kfar Saba) by one of these errant celebratory bullets, should clear up the gunfire versus fireworks debate. While the police are not ruling out terrorism or a sniper, the current theory is that the driver was seriously injured by one of these Palestinian 'celebratory' bullets. I do wonder how an accidental bullet can get over the concrete barrier that protects drivers on Route 6 from Palestinian snipers. (Remember, a seven-year-old girl riding in the backseat of her parents' car driving on Route 6 was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Kalkilya before the concrete separation barrier was erected.) ... It is nearly 1 a.m. and the gunshots continue. They have been increasing in intensity all evening. It's a good thing I know they are just celebrating … . ----- That's what those "rabid settler jews" have to put up with, the DC Sniper scare daily. On a cultural note, where did the whole firing the gun into the air thing start from? Guns weren't in the mid-east for long, so it's not an old tradition. PS. The UN is warning of total economic collapse in Gaza, yet they can still afford to fire off two more rockets today. |
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