By now, most people are familiar with major Israeli media providing wall-to-wall coverage of the bombing of northern Israel and fighting in Lebanon. The major players include the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Kol Israel and many others in both Hebrew and English. You can find excellent lists at Mondo Times (http://tinyurl.com/mqhfd), GoIsrael (http://www.goisrael.co.il/) and AbyzNewsLinks (http://www.abyznewslinks.com/israe.htm).

But today I want to focus on the very personal and raw writing that you will find on the blogs of Israelis who are living through the bombing.

No report on blogging can be comprehensive. Since I first wrote about Israeli bloggers three years ago their numbers have mushroomed, as has blogging in general. A recent report by the blogging search site Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) said that there are about 1.6 million posts per day, or 18.6 posts per second. And since the start of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, average activity has jumped to 2.5 million posts per day (http://tinyurl.com/oqkwn).

Here’s a sampling of some of the blogs — some of which you will probably agree with, others will get you angry — but hopefully all of which lend insight to the lives of ordinary Israelis.

“When I told all my friends back in the States that I was moving to Israel they looked at me like I was crazy. Now I get e-mails asking me when am I going to come home. I am home.” (http://sabraheart.blogspot.com)

“This war is making me ill. The Lebanese civilians dying makes me ill. The rockets on Israeli schools, hospitals and apartment buildings makes me ill. The fact that it is Israeli weapons that have killed so many innocent people — even though we have no choice — makes me ill. The fact that there are some Israelis — including, apparently, some army spokespeople — who don’t understand that just because you warn people to leave an area, doesn’t mean they all can, makes me ill.” (http://www.chayyeisarah.blogspot.com)

“A country should not risk the lives of its own soldiers in order to protect the enemy’s civilians. Unfortunately, Israel has often endangered its own soldiers in war for the fear that using superior firepower may cause civilian deaths among those who indiscriminately kill our civilians without batting an eyelid.” (http://cosmicx.blogspot.com)

Joke. “Two men are sitting in a barbershop in Nazareth. One asks the other, ‘Hey, what’s the forecast for today?’

‘I heard 26 in Carmiel, 30 in Haifa, 29 in Tiberias and 23 in Safed.’

‘So I guess I don’t need to bring a jacket to work today, huh?’

‘Who’s talking about the weather?'”

Not amused? Tell me about it. (http://3asl.blogspot.com/)

“My wife ran into a bunch of people today from our village. One lady said she had put the kids outside in a little swimming pool when she heard a missile incoming. She grabbed the kids and ran inside and the boom was so loud she was sure it has hit the house. It had actually hit the neighbor’s house.” (http://rockofgalilee.blogspot.com/)

I came across that last blog in a very good listing of Israeli and Lebanese blogs at CBC.ca (http://tinyurl.com/pwtof). On a related note, Sarah Ellison points out in the Wall Street Journal that bloggers from Lebanon and Israel and not only voicing their opinions but are engaging with bloggers on the other side of the border. (http://tinyurl.com/mooup)

Some of the other blogs I find myself returning to include Israelity (http://www.israelity.com), Israellycool (http://www.israellycool.com/blog) and Yaakov Kirschen’s Dry Bones Blog. Perhaps most amusing — and depressing — are reprints of Kirschen’s vintage cartoons like this one from Oct. 27, 1982:

“Iran sponsored the bill to throw Israel out of the U.N.”

“Iran? What the hell does Iran think she’s doing?”

“That’s an easy one. She’s making all of the Arab states look like moderates.” (http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com)

Although many residents of the north have decided to seek refuge farther south, others haven’t budged. Carmia, a contributor to the Kishkushim blog, lives in Haifa and wasn’t going to let the situation stop her from her hunt for a new apartment. “My boyfriend and I decided to look for apartments anyway even though there had been a few sirens earlier in the day. Around 7 p.m., after we had just arrived at the first apartment in Stella Maris (the same street where Haifa’s first-ever katyusha had landed), the sirens sounded again. The woman whose apartment we were looking at didn’t have a mamad (a safe room) so she told us, ‘Get into the shower — and take a look at the bathroom while you’re there.” (http://kishkushim.blogspot.com/)

No word yet on whether they rented the apartment.

Mark Mietkiewicz is a Toronto-based Internet producer who writes, lectures and teaches about the Jewish Internet. He can be reached at [email protected].