By Marney Blom
In the past week, Israel has been pummeled by a resurgence of terrorist attacks.
More than 130 rockets, missiles and mortars, fired from the Gaza strip into Israel’s southern Negev region, have caused numerous civilian injuries. But, to the frustration of perpetrators, in one week of selected targeting of an Israeli population of one million, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reported only one loss of life.
The Popular Resistance Committees otherwise known as the PRC – a radical jihadist terrorist organization connected to Hamas, is being held responsible for the attacks.
Academics, like Professor Mordecai Kedar, research associate with the Bar-Ilan University,
regard the assaults of the past week as strategic, Iran-backed, and ultimately aimed at diverting
attention from the disintegrating Syrian power base. According to Kedar, “Iran is trying to ease
the media coverage from Syria. The best place is to ignite a new front between Israel and its
neighbours…to divert the cameras from Syria to Sinai, to Israel, to Egypt [and] to Gaza. Maybe [it
will] create another Cast Lead [Israel-Gaza War].”
For residents of the southern Israeli community of Be’er Sheva, the reality of becoming the new
front of the Middle East conflict has very personal ramifications.
Meir Dmri’s home of ten years was sprayed with deadly shrapnel when an incoming missile
exploded and leveled his next-door neighbour’s garage. Providentially, neither Dmri, nor his
family, were home. “My son literally left the house ten minutes before the bomb dropped,” he
says.
The 56-year-old had suffered a heart attack the previous Tuesday. His family was visiting him in
the hospital during the time of the strike. Typically, the family of four would have been home that
Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath day of rest. Their absence was a miracle of timing.
In a similar scenario, Be’er Sheva Tuviahu High School’s entire student body of 700 was spared.
In a last minute decision, the mayor of Israel’s southern capital, Ruvik Danilovich canceled the
school’s orientation day scheduled to convene at the time the rocket struck.
Ishai Avital, head of foreign relations for the municipality, marvels at the providential coincidence. “The purpose [was] to kill civilians, and it was not the first time the school was hit here in Be’er Sheva. But thank God – and I want to say it: Thank God – and thanks to the mayor’s feelings…the right gut-feeling he had, schools were not occupied today and two and a half years ago [when a missile hit the school during the 2008/2009 Israel-Gaza War].”
The most recent incoming Grad rocket to hit the school, penetrated the roof, shattered glass and barreled through several floors without causing injury. In spite of the shock of a close call, residents were composed. “There is no hysteric mood here,” says Avital. “Most of the people are listening to the instructions and staying…in their homes and bomb shelters in the safe areas.”
Avital’s faith in God’s providence appears appropriate and perhaps not without prophetic
significance. Translated, the school’s name, Tuviahu, means “goodness of God.”
During a subsequent respite from rocket fire, curious residents of Be’er Sheva gathered around
the Israeli TV networks reporting live from the site of the missile strike on the high school.
Oddly the area felt safe and even somewhat protected – at least until the next round of Jihadist
aggression.
But armed with an arsenal of biblical promises of God’s protection over the land, Israel could
witness many more accounts of miracles in the days ahead.
Copyright © 2011 Acts News Network.