For the past two years and 9 months, I have been sleeping in a bomb shelter. I know it sounds funny, but it’s sadly true.

All new buildings in Israel are obligated to have bomb shelters and since my apartment is small, it turns out that my bedroom is actually a bomb shelter.

You wouldn’t notice if you didn’t see the big steel door and the big steel plate surrounding the bedroom window.

Since I live in Jerusalem, I don’t have to worry about running to a bomb shelter because this is not where terrorists are firing their rockets towards. At least not yet!

The situation, however, is completely different when you live in southern Israel close to the Gaza Strip. For the past six years while I have been living in Israel, I have seen terrorists inside Gaza launching thousands of rockets into Israel, purposely targeting innocent Israeli civilians.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli babies, children, mothers, and grandmothers run for their lives repeatedly when these terror rockets start raining down on Israeli cities and communities in Southern Israel.

I was filming and interviewing people in the south a couple of years ago, and these incredibly brave and strong Israeli’s who live along the border with Gaza told me that they literally have less than 10 seconds to find shelter from the time the rockets are fired until they hit Israel. Not to mention mortars, snipers, terror kites, bomb balloons and terror tunnels.

This is not a normal way to live. The trauma and stress from living this way of life is unfathomable.

The high explosive rockets fired from terrorists inside the Gaza Strip are not aimed at the Israeli Defense Forces; rather, they are intentionally aimed at Israeli civilians, which is despicable.

In May 2019, 700 rockets were fired in less than 48 hours. Just this week more than 400 rockets were fired in under 48 hours, targeting 1 million Israelis, causing them to stay home in bomb shelters. Work, school, and kindergartens were canceled, and stores remained closed. Women had to give birth in the bomb shelters and weddings were taking place in bomb shelters too! Even Tel Aviv, for the first time in 30 years, had to close stores and cancel schools due to Islamic terror rockets being indiscriminately fired over the city.

Anyone who doesn’t live this reality will never be able to understand how absolutely horrifying this way of life is and how traumatized people who live in this part of Israel are. With that being said, Israelis in this area still try to live as much of a normal life as possible. They love the area, they are proud and resilient. But they deserve peace and quiet once and for all!

When Israel retaliates, the goal is clear: To directly go after the terrorists responsible for these attacks. Israel does not target innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip. Israel deliberately goes after terrorist training sites, weapon manufacturing factories, rocket launching sites, and other areas of the terrorists infrastructure.

Israel often drops pamphlets into Gaza, warning civilians that they will be bombing a certain area where rockets are being launched from (since Hamas and the Islamic Jihad fire their rockets purposely from within crowded population centers within the Gaza strip), essentially giving people a heads up to leave the area. Besides Israel, what other country would do that?

The terrorists’ modus operandi is to immerse themselves among civilians and use them as human shields, because they know what the headlines in the mainstream media will read if God forbid any civilians are killed during an Israeli military operation in Gaza.

The IDF always does its best to not harm any civilians, which of course is the COMPLETE opposite from the terrorists inside Gaza!

When Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad fire hundreds of rockets at a time towards Israel, they aim them as directly as possible towards Israeli kindergartens, hospitals, schools, factories, and residential areas. These Islamic terrorists have no regard for Jewish life or even the lives of their own Muslim population in Gaza. On the contrary, their goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and to spread terror and chaos within Israel. This is precisely why the world must wake up and come to grip with this reality. Israel first, the world comes next.

Let’s get the right perspective into what happened during this last rocket attack.

The Islamic Jihad fired a 300 kg rocket aimed at the civilian population in Southern Israel. Now imagine if that rocket had hit a school, nursing home, a supermarket or a house. The result would have been disastrous with multiple casualties. There were several direct hits but because Israelis in those areas are so used to running for their lives the minute they hear the code red sirens, no one was killed this time around! But what about next time?!

Since no Israeli civilians were killed in this past barrage of hundreds of rockets, we must say thank you to God, Who watches over Israel and protects the soldiers while they protect and defend the Land of Israel.

Rather than reporting the real news about how these cowardly terror groups openly call for the destruction of Israel and fire hundreds of rockets at innocent Israeli civilians, the mainstream media is to busy reporting about a family that was tragically killed in the Gaza Strip during this round of violence. This is heartbreaking, civilians being killed is terrible but I do want to mention, Islamic Jihad flags were seen at the funeral.

It is only by God’s miracle that there hasn’t been a complete disaster and massacre of Jews with that many rockets flying in!

What about the devastating trauma when a grandmother must come down from the third floor and find a bomb shelter and she literally has 10-20 seconds before the rocket lands and explodes. Or how about a mother with four small children who must grab her children and flee her house to find a bomb shelter. What is the kids are playing outside?

How can life be LIVED this way, day after day, night after night, for YEARS? This trauma and shock are something that the rest of us will never understand! And it happens over and over! It is sadly a way of life for Israelis in southern Israel.

An 8-year-old girl collapsed while running for shelter and she is still in the hospital. A rocket directly hit a busy intersection and exploded. Again, it’s a miracle that no one was killed!

These are only a few of the stories from this latest rocket attacks.

What other nation would show this level of repeated restraint like Israel does, when Israeli civilians are being targeted by thousands of rockets?

Now there is a ‘cease-fire’, but as we have seen many times in the past, a cease fire with the devil can’t be trusted and will never be honored. A cease fire for terrorists is simply a time to regroup, re-arm and begin their lifelong terror war against Israel once again.  Their hate towards the Jewish people has not gone away overnight, rockets will keep coming so what to do about it!

What should Israel do?

Isn’t it about time that the rest of the world starts waking up to realize that what the Jewish people have endured from the hands of these terrorists?

Israel has every right to defend herself with any and all means necessary against this evil, millennia old goal of wiping the Jewish people off the map!

Never again starts now.