First Day




It is 10:40 on a sunny and warm Saturday morning, and time for my walk through Gaza. I take a break from people’s chattering and from traffic noise and listen to my iPod. The streets are crowded, as they always are on the first day of the week. Despite the embargo, students, salesmen, taxi drivers, police—all have things to do. I am always fascinated by the human will to go on with life despite the absence of what most people understand as normal circumstances.

I listen to Cat Stevens’s “Wild World” and smile, knowing that my friend, Smadar Perry, will soon be listening to the same tune. Smadar is a journalist at Yediot Ahronot, the Tel Aviv-based daily. She called on Friday, asking for my favorite song, because she was to be a guest at 11 a.m. on a radio station there and wanted to talk to her listeners about our friendship, and to play the music. But at a traffic light I switch to Mamma Mia!—a soundtrack for a faster and more determined pace. At 11:15 a.m., Israeli bombs begin falling, close by; bombardment is suddenly the new norm.

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