Shots, Sirens and Screams: Terror in My Neighborhood

I heard the sirens. I heard the shots. I heard the screaming. The screaming was me. From my window, watching the end of a terrorist attack in my neighborhood. Happening in front of my son’s school. I am a woman that can do 10 things at once (like most women, it’s in our DNA to multitask), but the terror, it made me weak.

Paralyzed by my own fear, I began to dial anyone, the teachers, the other parents, my husband. I needed to know what happened. Even if physically I was stuck, emotionally my feelings were on a rampage.

A rampage like the one happening at that moment. Turns out, two terrorists got on the main bus in my neighborhood (the one with arabs and Jews riding it everyday), and just shot and stabbed anyone they could get to. They tried to get on another bus behind it, but the driver was alerted by the first bus and locked his doors. Reports of how many victims and deaths are still unclear, at the time that I write this post, but there were many, including death.

What is clear, is the lust for blood. The terrorists came out of the neighboring arab village, Jabul Mukabar. Many of the terrorists in the last two weeks have come from this neighborhood. They have been rioting since last summer’s war. The first riot and celebration came after the death of the three boys, so I guess even before the war. The village is a part of Jerusalem. No fences, to separation. The mothers bring their children to parks in the neighborhood (I used to speak with them and talk about our children or my dog), they work in the supermarket, go to the post office and bank, the arab buses drive through the neighborhood, more often than ours. But they have divided themselves.

The divide was clear after the daily riots. Even clearer after the numerous firebombs on the homes on the periphery of the neighborhood. And clearly, we as the residents begged for more security. For years we have asked. We have demanded. We have signed petitions. Just last week Yair Lapid came for a tour. His words are haunting. He said, “you know how it is. We have to wait until someone is killed before they (the government) will do something. But can’t we do something now and save one life.”

As predicted, someone has died in the attack. And now my children are in school getting an education on the hard knocks of life. You may not read about it in the news. They don’t count up the victims of trauma. The ones that have to grow up learning hate and violence from an early age.

My son asked me yesterday, why there is a guard in the front of his school. I told him it was to protect him. And he thought it was strange.