Residents worry turmoil will affect family members in Israel

“We never thought that there would be any trouble in Ashkelon,” said Kam, of Bethesda. “It hasn’t been one of the communities that has ever been hit by a missile, and the fact that there’s a war raging right now was just a total surprise to most people.”

Since July 12, 24 Israelis and more than 200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, have been killed by missile attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza and the Lebanese Islamic group Hezbollah, as well as the Israeli military’s responses.

As the violence enters its second week, members of the Jewish community in Washington are increasingly concerned for relatives in northern Israel.

Yehudis Newman, whose cousin Yisroel lives with his wife and four children in Nahariya, just south of the Lebanese border, receives updates on him from relatives. She could not have imagined the current situation when she visited him in 1991.

“He had taken me to a tourist attraction called the Good Fence, where Lebanon and Israel put up a flag from each of their countries to represent their goodwill towards each other,” said Newman, a Hebrew-school teacher in Alexandria. “It seemed that there was a respect, or at least there was peace.”

The new long-range capabilities displayed by Hezbollah and Palestinian militants have created uncertainty, said Keren Shekel Wasser, whose cousins in Tzfat are within range of Hezbollah missiles.

“Haifa is the third-largest city, and this is the first time that a missile was able to reach that far into Israel from Lebanon,” said Wasser, a former teacher in Rockville. “So now we’re worried about where else these missiles can reach.”

For Wasser, Newman and others with family in the region, news reports hit close to home.

“It hurts me and I feel very concerned [for my cousin],” Newman said. “But I know there’s nothing I can do for him. I pray for him and I trust in God.”