Jan 7, 2009 6:57 pm US/Eastern
Fears In Israel Spill Overseas Into NYC
Relatives Of Those Living Near Conflict Worry As Violence Continues
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Israeli mourners comfort each others during the funeral procession of 32-year-old Israeli army Major Dagan Vertman at the Mt. Hertzel Military cemetery in Jerusalem on Jan. 6, 2009.
Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images
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The bloodshed in Gaza has left a tidal wave of worry among both Israelis and Palestinians, and those emotions are spilling over to families here in New York.
Israeli resident Devorah Goodman, visiting her mother in Brooklyn, can't wait to get back to her family in the Middle East.
"When I call, I call three, four times a day," she tells CBS 2.
And on Staten Island, Palestinian Omar Shakkour worries about his extended family in Gaza.
"I pray for them and I hope God is with them because nobody else is with them," he says.
Shakkour runs several businesses including an Arab market that prospers selling Halal meat and groceries. His sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts live in Gaza City which has been heavily shelled. Goodman and her family live in the port city of Ashdod which has been hit by Hamas rockets.
"A lot have been falling particulary in my area," she says.
The 54 year-old Goodman and her husband have nine children and seven grandchildren. She says in their neighborhood, a vacant Israeli kindergarten was hit two days ago, and it was just a three-minute walk from their home.
"The kindergarten was demolished, which means when it exploded, whatever fell, shrapnel, nuts and bolts were shooting out like bullets," she says.
Goodman says her family is currently sleeping in much the same way Shakkour's family says they are surviving: "They said that in the building, house, there is no glass and they sleep in a middle room away from the street."
Goodman, whose own mother survived Auschwitz, will return to her family on Sunday.
"I feel part of the general Jewish survival," she says.
And for both the Shakkours and the Goodmans, how it all ends is beyond their reach. But in the meantime, they are filled with worry over the killing, wondering if their families could be next.
According to Gaza medics, a total of 660 Palestinians, including 215 children and 98 women, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its military offensive twelve days ago. The Israeli Army says seven of its soldiers have been killed, and three civilians were killed in Hamas rockets.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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