'Iran targeting Israel-Saudi Arabia ties': Jerusalem deputy mayor

MY DAUGHTER is part of the IDF and was recruited two months ago. Her base is down south. My husband and I are very worried and we are praying for her safety. I have an older son, who is also in the IDF, but he is in a technical role, so I am less worried about him. But, first of all, I must say that this is nothing short of a massacre. It is the biggest attack on civilians in Israel’s history.

A few weeks ago, we were recalling the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. Could Israel have another Yom Kippur war? Could we be surprised? Little did we know that a couple of weeks later, we will be in a situation when the country is in shock and trauma. We are trying to deal with a hostile situation which we have never had on this scale, where the elderly, the sick, the disabled children, the toddlers and the babies have been targeted. More civilians have been hurt than combatants, which is unheard of. The terrorists were targeting civilians.

We pray that we can come up with a plan to get rid of the terrorists that are still here in Israel. Second, we need a plan to bring back the hostages. And finally, we should dismantle the terrorist infrastructure that has been built in Gaza with help from Iran and other genocidal regimes in the neighbourhood who want to put a stop to the effort to normalise ties with Saudi Arabia. I want to be an optimist. I have been involved with the Abraham accords and I don’t see any country reversing it. We pray the number of casualties doesn’t go much higher, and we can get back on track with efforts to normalise ties with the rest of the Arab world.