Disturbing News From The Front

This is an email I received yesterday from an old Sar-el buddy of mine, who is back in Israel volunteering, with some disturbing news from the front:

guys,

sorry for the mass e mail but so much has happened....it is now 1 week since i have been on base....a lovely place called bet hillel....we work at times just a few hundred yards from the border.....the work is hard but very rewarding.....there is so much i want to tell you and none of it good.....

first, some jobs....like building bunkers.....laying razor wire....clean machine guns....but yesterday i was rewarded with a great honor...10 of us were asked to help move something from one place to another but that was it....we showed up at a school for handicapped and challenged kids....the school was for all kids....jewish, christian, muzlim, druse....anyone who need this extra care....it was a school of peace....so w start moving things...tables....chairs....chest...blackboards....in the middle of the moving they asked us to come into the school....we had no idea why....to get more stuff....who knew.....until we were inside....the school was hit by a katusha rocket...destroying a class room....steel balls shoot into the hall way destroying it and then the infirmery next store was destroyed....the foundation on the second floor is craked and ready to fall out from under us.....what more could i say...what more could we do...we left and with a little more zeal and feeling better for what we were doing we finished our job with great pride....and as we headed to the new school to unload the classroom stuff a car came to a screeching halt....a women jumped out and hugged me....she was from houston....she had made aliyah 2 years ago and was a teacher at the school.....she said she had heard that some volunteers were moving the school and had to come down to see us and thank us.....incredible.....how she found out i had no idea....

then to top it off i was up to till 2 in the morning speak with the soldiers on the base....and was i educated....we had already heard that a patrol of soldiers had returned that afternoon patrol.....one of the volunteers is fluent in hebrew and translated what they were saying...they were on patrol on the israeli side and came in contact with hezbollah on the lebanese side of the border.....and they couldn't do a thing.....unless hezbollah shoots at them....they must leave them alone.....last nite i spoke with soldiers that were at an outpost where they watch hezbollah.....bringing in arms....rockets....ammunition....everything.....and they can do nothing about it.....they go to the UN outposts and trade food and items with the UN soldiers.....all the UN outposts are on the lebanese side....none on the israeli side.....information flows from israel to the UN and then from UN to hezbollah but not the other way....and by the way a lot of the UN forces here are muzlim....bottom line.....they feel that within 1 year they will have to be back and do it again....if not sooner......also the rockets are bigger and can hit tel aviv this time....

i don't know what to do....and am sorry for sharing this with you....but felt you needed to know....i am so outraged....the work i am doing just doesn't seem to be enough....

anyways...miss you all