Did you notice that only after the first three plagues were the Israelites finally excluded from having to suffer alongside the Egyptians? The Israelites endured water turned to blood, frogs, and gnats before being spared the remaining plagues including flies (Exodus 8:22), dead livestock, probably the boils (see 9:11--Pharaoh's officials couldn't stand but Moses could stand), the hail, probably the locusts (see 10:6), and the darkness. (The plague on the firstborn, of course, required a person to take action to be spared.)
The only reason I could find that the Israelites had to endure the first plagues was so that God could show his power by making a distinction in the later plagues between his people and the Egyptians. After the plague on livestock Pharaoh had the matter investigated. He had to have been dumbfounded when he found "that not even one of the animals of the Israelite had died" (9:7).
And while it had to have been a severe test for God's people that, after their workload was greatly increased, now this! Yet for those who believed God's promise of deliverance it was surely their faith that helped them to see what it was that God was doing and which carried them through it all.
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