It is so hard to differentiate between the sound of thunder and the sound of falling shrapnel from downed missiles. The only difference is the alarm that you hear on your phone telling you that in the next few minutes you may get a real alarm and you’d better go into your safe room. Today the morning started with real thunder and even some lightening, and it was raining – completely unusual for this time of year in Israel! My freesias are blooming profusely, as if there were no war. Nature does not care about the falling missiles, as long as it is not uprooted by a direct hit. Although the paper reports multiple hits from Iran and Lebanon in the north, we have not experienced direct hits.

In spite of being in the north, our small town of Karmiel has not had direct hits, but there has been damage from shrapnel of downed missiles falling on some houses and open areas. Our municipality has created WhatsApp groups in Hebrew, English, Russian and Spanish. We all carry our cell phones, and get multiple warnings stating: “in a few minutes you may get an alarm – stay close to your safe place.” Sometimes the alarm does not materialize, since the rockets are not always in your direct area. But when the real alarm comes, you have 30 seconds to get into your shelter, close the door, and wait. Pretty soon you will hear loud booms which do not resemble thunder. Those are the booms of the rockets being intercepted, and the shrapnel causes damage when it falls on homes. We only had one casualty from shrapnel hitting a person who did not follow the home-front command instructions.

I was wondering for a long time what thunder actually is, and what makes it so loud that we can hear it from what seems so far away in the atmosphere. From the National Weather Service, I learned that thunder is the sound produced by the rapid heating and expansion of air surrounding a lightning bolt, which can reach temperatures of roughly 50,000 degrees F — five times hotter than the sun’s surface. This explosive expansion creates a shock wave that propagates outward as sound waves, ranging from sharp, loud cracks to low, rolling rumbles. Thunder can be heard for a distance of only about 16 km from the lightening strike. The sound of thunder should serve as a warning to anyone staying outside that they are within striking distance of the storm and they need to get to a safe place immediately. The loud booms you sometimes hear are created by the main lightening channel as it reaches the ground.  Since you see the lightening immediately and it takes the sound of thunder about 5 seconds to travel 1.6 km you can calculate the distance between you and the lightening. If you count the number seconds between the flash of lightening and the sound of thunder and then divide by 5, you will get the distance in km to the lightening. If the number of seconds is 0, it is VERY close. Keep in mind that you should be in a safe place while you count. Remember, if you can hear the thunder, chances are that you are within striking distance of the storm. You certainly do not want to get struck by the next bolt of lightening.

Another flash of thunder and lightening happened on Saturday, and was reported by a friend on Facebook. It is so distressing to me, that I am going to share it here as I translated it from the Hebrew:

“I stood in Habima Square and broke down—I cried, screamed, cursed. The police violence was sadistic, disproportionate, dangerous, and nearly cost lives. Older men and women were slammed to the ground, young women were dragged by their hair, a pregnant woman begged them not to hurt her stomach, horses trampled those who had been thrown to the ground and tried to gather their belongings, those who tried to provide first aid to the injured were violently pushed away. The police’s goal was not to ensure public safety at a lawful demonstration—the goal was to instill terror, to use as much force as possible, to cause as much fear and harm as possible, to break us physically and mentally. They came for blood. They enjoyed it.

“You’re doing a great job,” the officer in charge of the event repeated over the loudspeaker to the riot police (Yasam). Among the demonstrators yesterday was a dear and beloved friend, a person of justice, love, and peace, who was thrown to the ground by Yasam officers, lost his glasses, and collapsed a few minutes later while descending to the protected area. His huge heart stopped beating. The protest’s medical team immediately sprang into action. As doctors, as partners in the struggle, as human beings, they had only one goal before their eyes—to save his life. That effort was cut short with violence and brutality when a police officer prevented the continuation of resuscitation efforts, threatening to arrest the doctors while our friend was fighting for his life on the parking lot floor. That officer did not settle for threats alone and called in a Border Police unit (Magav) to the parking lot. Border Police officers grabbed paramedics by their shirt collars and threw them backward, away from the patient. The paramedics had to beg to be allowed to provide aid to a person in distress.

We, a group of shocked and worried friends—some of us bleeding ourselves—who refused to leave our friend alone while he fought for his life, were evacuated with shouting and senseless, emotionless violence. “Get them out of here already,” one Border Police officer was heard shouting to another. Our dear friend is now fighting for his life in the hospital. He is fighting for his life because of the actions of the Israeli police. He is fighting for his life because his body could not withstand the brutal blows he suffered at the hands of Yasam forces. His only “crime”? Demonstrating to stop the war in a country that calls itself democratic. So here is the truth: We are no longer a democratic country. The government and the state’s security forces endanger citizens’ lives and spill their blood instead of protecting us. This is a more dangerous enemy than any enemy outside Israel’s borders. Yesterday we almost lost a dear friend. He is still fighting for his life. But the killing of demonstrators will happen soon.”

I am sad. Very sad to have to witness what is happening in my beloved country, where people are trying to live with some sense of normalcy in a war that we were dragged into whether we wanted it or not. We are told the purpose of the fighting is to free the world from nuclear threat, which is necessary, and to free the Iranian people from a dictatorship that kills thousands of demonstrators. But if we do not rise and refuse to cooperate, we will end up in the same dictatorial state that does not hesitate to kill its citizens for demonstrating against a war we have been forced to experience with a daily thunder of rockets, not to mention the economic costs, and the isolation. Will you hear our voices over the thunder?