Day 12 - more sirens, 2 dead

Day 12 – July 23^rd 2006

Another day, another 10 sirens. However this time, only the second alarm brought loud explosions. At least 8 or 10 very loud ones. Two of our fellow Israelis died today in rocket attacks. One was a carpenter caught in an open workshop, another was a driver whose car was sprayed with shrapnel from the missile.

While there was just myself and Yomi (the foodstore owner) during the weekend, everyone was back in the building today – if only for a while. The Bahat family that arrived this evening from Tel Aviv, are going back in the morning. I heard that last night there was a huge traffic jam on the highway leading back into the city. I presume that people understand that they need to return to their day-to-day lives. Perhaps they were encouraged by the quiet Saturday or they realize they simply need to earn a living. Shimon Peres has proposed legislation in the Knesset to compensate business and workers who have lost income, but it is not clear. Israelis have been called back to work today.

Dmitry, the software programmer who works for my company, came to work - in spite of the risks of arriving to work on a scaled back bus schedule that took over an hour to bring him. He also mentioned that is was onerous being home all week. I brought Dima home by car this evening, though it was still light out. I thought it is not fair that he should be at risk while coming to work for me. I took the southern winding road by Beit Oren out of Haifa thinking it is less likely to be hit. It is the northern part of Haifa that has been getting most of the missiles.