News from Haifa, Israel

Dear Editor:

My friends Tova Teitelbaum and her husband live in Haifa, which is currently under siege receiving rockets sent by Hezbollah.

In her greetings to me, I wanted to share with our community what she wrote:

“Many Israelis have high hopes that Trump will help Israel. They are certainly relieved that Kamila Harris didn’t win.

I personally thought that Trump should have won the Nobel Prize for Peace. He brought about the Abraham Accords which are still holding despite the war

in Israel.

If Arafat won the peace prize which resulted in the death of thousands of Israelis and Barak Obama got the prize for his speech in Cairo — then Trump, compared to them, should certainly have received one.”

Sirens in Haifa

The siren goes off just as my husband is getting out of the car to go to his doctor’s appointment. I stop the car and look for a sheltered place. The medical centre to my left is the closest but first I must cross the street, go down some stairs and follow to where everybody is hurrying. I’m eighty years plus, mobile and independent, but I need a stick to get around.

I get out of the car, the sirens are still active, I cross the street, just as I am starting to go down the stairs, a man sees my plight, leaves his safe space, comes towards me and helps me to the building.

Ten minutes wait. You must stay in your safe shelter for ten minutes in case any flying debris hits you. I look around me – dozens of children, people who had gone shopping in the nearby supermarket, teenagers who had been enjoying their pizza in the nearby coffee shop and a few patients who were coming or going to the clinics in the building.

There is no panic, no shouting, no white faces. People flick open their cell phones to check if their families in other parts of the city are safe.

Ten minutes are over and we all leave. Some continue with their shopping and some go back and continue drinking the now cold coffees,

After my husband leaves the doctor’s waiting room we have to decide — should we do our weekly shopping in the supermarket next to the clinic or should we hurry back home. “Let’s wait till tomorrow and go where we always shop.” But I point out that we are parked right in front of the store so let’s shop now.

We go home and have barely closed the door when the sirens go off again.

As I sit in the room facing Lebanon, I can hear the booms of rockets going off in the Krayot, the suburbs of Haifa.

The majority of the population has little hope that the ceasefire just negotiated between Hezbollah and Israel that starts at 10 p.m. tonight will bring peace to the region. We are vividly aware that there was a ceasefire with both Lebanon and Gaza in October 2023. That did not prevent the attack on Israel in the north nor the atrocities of Hamas in the south.

Gloria Green

Winter Garden, Fla.