The explosive balloons from Gaza have resumed after a period of relative calm, sending the residents of the south, and the Gaza border communities in particular, back into a state of extreme anxiety, but this time of greater intensity.
The balloons used in these attacks have undergone a major upgrade: they are now equipped with more explosives as well as metal balls designed to maximize the harm they cause to us.
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A mural of the explosive balloons sent from Gaza is painted on a school in a Gaza border community
(Photo: Roee Idan)
As the worse these attacks become, the more determined the decision-makers in Jerusalem are to ignore them. The "balloon terror" of the early 2020s has slipped between the cracks unanswered.
The attacks are contained, they are absorbed by the local residents as the politicians bury their heads in the sand in front of him. The balloons keep coming, but our leadership is busy with elections.
The IDF responds solely to rocket fire, silent in the face of balloon terrorism plaguing swathes of the country.
Meanwhile, their cynicism knows no bounds. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett jets off to America, not forgetting to tweet in raptures about every meeting with everyone he could find in the U.S. government.
Netanyahu is also busy with his campaign: After weeks of terror, the prime minister decided Wednesday to meet with local leaders in the south – but only those affiliated to his Likud party. The only person he met with from the Gaza border communities was Tamir Idan of Sdot Negev, another Likud member.
Netanyahu's priorities are the threats in the north, his criminal indictment and the elections in three weeks. The problems in the south are at the bottom of the list.
There are 60,000 Israelis living in the shadow of the Gaza Strip who are still waiting to be moved up the national list of priorities. But it's not happening and hasn’t been for a long time.
The residents of the Gaza border communities feel neglected and frustrated.
The frustration stems from the knowledge that there is no one to talk to - no government, no leadership. Hamas is setting the agenda in the area and the Palestinian terror group decides whether Israel's southerners ever know peace of mind.
In the coming days, the defense minister will return to Israel and settle into his own election campaign.
No doubt, he will refer to the south and make his threats to Hamas. He will sound very clear and may even make perfect sense, but we will probably never see any results and all we will have a rapidly diminishing tweet or two.
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Balloons carrying explosives are dispatched into southern Israel from Gaza
(Photo: Eshkol Regional Council)
He will rely on the fact that people have short memories, that will hopefully fade away by Election Day.
But they won't. Because every blast or siren remind us, the residents of the Gaza border, how unsafe we are here and how much we do not count.
In this endless cycle of elections, politics trumps the security of the people.