Once again, Hamas fighters have penetrated through tunnels from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The army has killed ten attackers. The people in the border region hope that the military destroyed the underground passages.

The war can capture every moment the Israeli highway 232 parallel to the Gaza Strip. Homemade rockets can take, after a few seconds of warning. At the exit to the Kibbutz Nahal Os the cars are well within reach of well-armed snipers.

The 76-year-old Tami Halevy lives in this danger zone for about 60 years. Kibbutz Nahal Os was built in 1951 by the paramilitary youth pioneer Nahal, Halevy’s husband was one of the founders.

Nahal Os is long civil purposes, but a front post has remained the kibbutz. About 270 of the 350 residents have fled because of the war. “We older ones have sent away the boys,” says Tami Halevy. She is still there. “One must nevertheless take care of the potatoes and cows, so we do not lose everything.”

Even in the fields, there is every hundred meters of air raid shelters. Watered the potatoes from a safe distance by computer control. Who goes to the cows, wearing bullet-proof vest and helmet. Sealing planted trees hide the houses so they are not visible from Gaza.

Israeli ground offensive Gaza Strip:On Saturday, Hamas came to Israel twice before

In Gaza, the probability is much higher than in the Israeli border area to be killed as a bystander in the war. But the fear is great on both sides, fear is human.

In the fields along the border with Gaza armored vehicles between white yellow pumpkins are now posted. In Nahal soldiers were stationed Os. They are intended to protect the residents. Tami Halevy locks at night from their doorstep. “The tunnels are now our biggest fear,” says the 76-year-old.

On Monday have passed through self-dug tunnels to Israel once again Hamas fighters. The army discovered the attacker and took the group under attack. At least ten intruders were killed, one of them is said to have worn a belt of explosives.

On Saturday it was Hamas fighters apparently managed to get through the tunnel from the Gaza Strip into Israel – although the Israeli military has now launched a ground offensive against the militias and bombed Gaza for almost two weeks.

In the morning, Hamas fighters disguised in Israeli uniforms, two soldiers were killed on Israeli soil. In the evening they pressed with sedative and handcuffs prior to Israel. Apparently a kidnapping was planned as that of Gilad Shalit in 2006 that shook the country. Five years he was in the hands of Hamas before he was released on 1027 Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli ground offensive Gaza Strip:The military attempted to capture the underground danger

“We must destroy these tunnels. This can only be the army,” says Tami Halevy, whose German parents had fled to what was then British Mandate Palestine from the Nazis in 1934. “My grandson is one of the soldiers that are now in use in Gaza. He tries to close these tunnels, so his grandmother can live in safety again.”

Israel has the threat from the air largely eliminated by an expensive missile defense system. With an expansion of ground offensive in Gaza, the Israeli government now wants to get the danger from the tunnels into the handle.

More than a dozen tunnels wants the Israeli army now destroyed. On television, she shows pictures of concrete, man-high transitions. Cement is due to strict import restrictions on the Gaza Strip for the people there a luxury item. But Hamas can afford it obviously.

International is growing criticism of Israel’s actions. First of all civilians and many children are among the victims. But many Israelis do not mind. More than two-thirds in favor of the Gaza war, the consent climb even further, says pollster Camil Fuchs of the Tel-Aviv University. Apparently, the majority of Israelis feel as if they live like Tami Halevy directly at the front.

Israeli ground offensive Gaza Strip:”I do not want them to kill me”

“I do not want innocent people die in Gaza, especially children do not,” says Tami Halevy. “But I do not want them to kill me.” We or they. 58 years ago Halevy has seen how Roi Rutenberg, a friend of her husband, rode out of the kibbutz, to patrol the border. The mare came back alone. Palestinian nationalists had shot Rutenberg.

His funeral was given by the former Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan in Nahal Os a remarkable speech. He exhorted the citizens of the young state of Israel that their generation, the founders time, never could seem weak on Palestinians.

“For eight years, they sit in the refugee camps of Gaza, and before their eyes we change the land and villages in which they and their fathers lived,” Dayan said 1956 on the Palestinians in Gaza. “We are the generation who inhabited the country, and without a steel helmet and cannon fire, we will not plant a tree and can not build a house.”

Two generations later, it is in Israel hardly imagine that a chief of staff could appeal the expulsion of Palestinians without being vilified as a sympathizer of terrorists or denial of Israel’s right, believes the liberal Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”. Dayan’s doctrine of hardness, however, still seems to be out of stock.

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