Sunday, November 18, 2012

American players trapped in Israel

Maybe, like me, you've been reading the tweets of American players currently in Israel, and you have been frightened for them. ESPN covers the issue:

It's 3 a.m. in a small city just outside of Tel Aviv and Alexis Gray-Lawson answers the phone.

"I'm up," Gray-Lawson. "All the Americans are up."

Just the night before, an air-raid siren -- warning of a possible incoming bomb -- woke up Gray-Lawson.

The former California standout and All-Pac-10 first-team honoree, along with the other American basketball players who are contracted with teams in Israel for the season, are now finding themselves in the middle of an international conflict, as the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli military drop bombs on the other's territory. And the conflict is threatening to escalate.

"The siren went off and my teammates went running to the windows and you look out and people are walking outside like it's normal," Gray-Lawson said. "When it goes off, you are supposed to have three minutes to get into the bomb shelter. Ours is downstairs. Everybody is kind of frantic."

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