As Israel Police forces worked to secure the capital for Friday’s Jerusalem Marathon, Israeli Air Force pilots hit targets in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the dramatic escalation of Palestinian rocket attacks against population centers in the Negev Desert.

Thursday’s air force actions against Hamas installations followed – and preceded – Palestinian barrages against Ashdod on the Israeli coast, the city of Beersheva, and several communities closer to Gaza. Just a day before, the explosion of a bomb outside Jerusalem’s central bus station claimed the life of 59-year-old British tourist Mary Jane Gardner and wounded 39 others.

But even with the threat of more attacks, Israelis – such as Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Zalman Gorelik – within the rockets’ reach were deriving inspiration from apparent miracles that had kept them from harm.

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“The air raid siren woke most of us up,” Gorelik said of a Wednesday attack that roused the rabbi and his wife, Bella, and sent them scurrying to a so-called safe area of their home with eight of their children.

“There’s not much we can do when there’s an attack,” related the rabbi, who directs Chabad of Beersheva. “We don't have a shelter. Our house is old, from the 1960s.”

Instead, the family recited Psalms and prayed.

“Especially when there’s fear, it helps,” said Gorelik, for whom the recent attacks triggered memories of Israel’s mini-war in Gaza two years ago.

“This time, as then, there were wondrous miracles, plain before our eyes. The very fact that today’s missile landed in a courtyard right between the buildings – and didn’t hit anything – is a major miracle,” he explained. “A few meters either way, and everything might have gone very differently.”

Praying for Calm

In Jerusalem, where officials scrambled to restore order following the first bombing to strike the capital in four years, Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld sought to assure the public that things were safe.

“A lot will be going on here with regard to events and assessments taking place,” he said. “More than 1,000 participants are expected to arrive for the Jerusalem Marathon.”

A gag order prevented the spokesman from offering specific details on the bomb that blew out the windows in the front half of Bus No. 74 as it left a stop the Jerusalem International Conference Center. Rosenfeld said, however, that it appeared the terrorist had planted a bomb in a suitcase before escaping by foot.

“Had it been on the bus, it would have been much more dangerous,” he stated.

At the Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, Rabbi Menachem Kutner of the Chabad Terror Victims Project said that victims and their families can count on a network of support for their financial, emotional and spiritual needs.

“We are all one – every Jew is a brother or sister to the next – and thousands upon thousands of their family members are out there now, praying for their recovery,” said Kutner.

In Beersheva, where schools were closed on Wednesday and Thursday, Gorelik tried to maintain an upbeat attitude.

“One person who was injured got hurt because he opened the window just as a missile landed in the yard,” said the rabbi. “As it is, though, he is alive and doing well. That is a miracle too.”