Summary

This section provides a day-by-day breakdown of events in Israel in the 15 days following the earthquake.

Important events include difficulties coordinating rescue and relief efforts; the highly publicized saving, and eventual disappearance (also highly publicized), of a vulnerable young woman named Adia; and the outbreak of several forms of disease, including cholera and dysentery. As the situation escalates, the Israeli government takes increasingly desperate, and increasingly violent, measures to ensure its geographical security, and also to ensure that aid sent to Israel goes only to Jews. There is also an attempt by Israeli extremists to set fire to the Dome of the Rock, a holy site held sacred by Muslims. This, in turn, leads to the gathering of several Arab nations into an alliance that eventually declares war in Israel.

Conservative and Orthodox Jews proclaim that the Messiah...