This is Going to get a Lot Worse Before it Starts Calming Down

We have worries on both sides about more abductions of children and teens, and Hamas and the IDF exchanging love notes full of explosives:

Jewish and Muslim parents here kept their children indoors Monday, as anxious residents formed neighborhood watch groups and monitored social media, alert for revenge attacks following the recent abductions and killings of three Israelis and a Palestinian, all teenagers.

“It is the time of the ambush,” said Ahlam Kawasmi, 36, a mother of five who cares for the elderly. She was walking on the nearly deserted streets in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, just outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

“I tell my kids, ‘I don’t know if you leave if you will come back,’ ” she said. The family is avoiding public parks and outdoor evening celebrations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Among Jewish residents of Jerusalem, warnings circulated on text-messaging services such as WhatsApp asking citizens to report suspicious cars, strangers and activities.

“Pay attention,” a typical message began. “We have received information from the police that there are Arabs in Jerusalem who are opening doors and pretending they are police. . . . Send this message to as many people as possible.”

The Israeli police issued a statement saying that none of the messages were official. Residents said the atmosphere in the city was beginning to remind them of the tension and distrust that marked the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which began in 2000.

In Israel’s south, meanwhile, residents were dealing not with rumors but with sirens warning them hourly to seek shelter.

Since the abduction of three Israeli students last month, mortar rounds and rocket shells have been fired at Israel almost daily from the Gaza Strip. Almost 100 were fired Monday, and sirens sounded in 10 towns, the military said, adding that Israel’s U.S.-supported Iron Dome missile-defense system shot down a dozen rockets. The security cabinet had warned earlier that Israeli forces would retaliate with a major sustained salvo in the event of such a barrage.

This is depressing.

At the end of this, nothing will have changed, and some more people will have died on both sides.