The big picture and life

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It's been almost 3 months since the war in Gaza ended.

My friend Peaceman is still in Gaza.

Once every couple of weeks the Rafah border into Egypt opens for a day or two and some people are let through.

Peaceman has not been able so far to get permission to leave since Israel will not allow any Palestinians out and Egypt is making it extremely difficult.

The people of Gaza are still stranded in this unbearable situation.

During the first month after the war, rockets continued hitting Sderot and the region. For almost 2 months we are having a relative quiet. Only occasional rockets are fired from Gaza, and Israel seems to be holding it's fire and not operating in Gaza .

Many Israelis hoped that the war would bring quiet. Now that the war has ended, no one believe the quiet will hold. It is just a matter of time before the next escalation.

We are at a similar point we were before the war, only with thousands more killed injured and hopeless.

Our life has settled back to a rather calm and normal life. We are however always in alert that the quiet may end at any time.

As before Israel and the Palestinians are not working together on a real long lasting solution for the situation. It is not clear if and what the new Israeli government plans to do regarding the situation in Gaza, however from the public statements made both by Netaniahu (The prime minister) and Lieberman (the foriegn affairs minister) the policy of the new government will be even less hopeful than the previous one...

So what can we hope for? Well, maybe for human compassion, person to person connections, civil initiatives, people on both sides that keep on the ties of humanity even in these despperate times. Looking at the big picture brings much sorrow and despair. Looking at day to day life with all the small and amazingly beatiful humanity it contains gives me hope and allows me to move on.