Sderot Under Fire Again

Yet again the reality of life for the residents of Sderot and other communities in the South  of Israel

The Calm and the Calamity

Taking a few days off to visit the incredible wild flowers now seen in the Western Negev, we were touring just 3-4 kms from the border with Gaza. When we informed a friend in the States of our plans, her reaction was "isn't that dangerous?". I suppose that unless one lives here and is aware of the realities of way we live our lives, the influence of the media creates an image in one's minds that is totally removed from reality.

From our last visit to the area it was good to see that the government has finally got round to building safe rooms for those residents living close to the border with Gaza. Although there is still work to be done, we saw many, many homes such as those pictured below which avoids the need to run to an outside shelter within 15 seconds.



Addition of safe room to one's home gives more security



We had also read in a recent Jerusalem Post report that the shop owners in Sderot were still struggling after the enforced shutdown of their businesses due to the last outbreak of violence some weeks ago. Whilst the government has paid some compensation to shop owners, for many, it did not cover their expenses and they were finding it difficult to meet their obligations.

As we have a number of grandchildren's birthdays coming up shortly, my wife felt that we could help in a small way by buying presents in Sderot.

The newspaper referred to one specific shop keeper who had a jewelry shop "near the city center" and gave his name. We parked our car in the center and spent half an hour asking residents if they know of such a name. After the 5th or 6th time we hit the jackpot and found "Eduard". He was so overjoyed at our visit as a result of the newspaper write up. Unfortunately, he didn't have the type of item we were looking for but he introduced us to his friend nearby and we were pleased to be able to buy from him.   



Eduard in front of his jewelry shop

The calm and serene atmosphere, the peaceful quiet we felt as we toured the area made it difficult to believe that just a few short weeks ago, rockets were constantly raining down indiscriminently on all and sundry. The calamitous situation were life became abnormal was not apparent with anyone whom we talked to. In fact the kibbutz where we stayed escaped without a single hit. Yes, miracles did happen. 









Rockets Galore

As we approach a total of 400 attacks launched from Gaza since the cease fire that halted Israel's Cast Lead' military operation in Gaza on January 19, 2009, on Saturday nigthhtn upgraded Qassam rocket scored a direct hit on the children's hydrotherapy rehabilitation center, located in the heart of Sderot's Sapir College. Thus reports the Sderot Media Center.

The Saturday night Qassam attack followed the explosion of a Iranian Grad missile that hit the city of Ashkelon on Friday morning, July 30th. Hamas controlled Gaza has targeted Ashkelon, with a population of 125,000 Israelis, since March 2008.

The children's hydrotherapy rehabilitation center at Sderot's Sapir College provides therapy and workshops for special-needs children who live in the Western Negev and is used by children from the entire country. The facility was decimated.

For the full story with photos and a video see http://sderotmedia.org.il/bin/content.cgi?ID=693&q=3

Let the Desert Bloom

Not more than a stone's throw from the border with Gaza in the western Negev, my wife and I took a couple of days off from the usual routine to cut ourselves off from civilisation (or so it seemed) and visit the "blooming" desert region of the country following the wonderful rains we have had.

The journey started at the Media Center (SMC) in Sderot http://sderotmedia.org.il/ . The center's media outreach, education seminars, and social media projects have brought the story of Sderot to millions of people across the world, including political leaders and international. As Noam Beduin, the head of the center told me, journalists visiting the area after being brainwashed in Gaza, see a town rebuilt with little outward signs of the effects 10,000 rockets over the last 8 years. however the trauma of the residents of this gutsy town has created many social problems.

The center offers tools to the Sderot community in the area of social media so that psychologically traumatized residents learn to express their suffering through the arts of the media in theater and writing. This year, SMC is running the Sderot Community Treatment Theater for Sderot high school girls. The theater company will eventually perfom across Israel and the world, with the aim of allowing outside audiences to listen and absorb the real life experiences of the Sderot "actresses" translated into their performance.

Our journey then continued south parallel to the Gaza border, where we spent time cyling and walking amongst the most incredible sights of fields, as far as the eye could see, as carpets of red and also white, yellow and other colours.

At one kibbutz, where we cycled around the fields, we came across a beuatiful carpet of red with tables and chairs set out amongst the flowers as preparations were underway for a barbeque lunch. To sit and enjoy a lunch in such surroundings can only be descibed as idyllic.

This, then is the Western Negev "desert", an area developed where human beings have reversed the threat of desertification as is happening in so many countries. Trees abound to keep the top layers of earth from being blown away and if one could imagine a true "Garden of Eden", then surely this area must qualify.

A Humanitarian Crisis?

Continuing the theme of a “humanitarian crisis” from the blog of a few days ago, it is already sickening to hear these constant claims from Hamas of the problems and shortages in the Gaza Strip. At every opportunity the Western media is being taken for a ride by the problems of Hamas’s own makings. Their complaints are getting sufficient attention from organizations such as Amnesty International, Terje Larsson, the BBC ad nauseum.

The facts on the ground are actually rather different. Of course the Palestinians in the Strip have got a problem but they are being used and exploited for the aims and objectives of Hamas.

The crossings into the Gaza Strip are always open UNLESS there is terrorist activity in thearea and day by day, tonnes of foods, produce, fuel, and heating oil are being transported into the Strip. Palestinian traders report stock levels of the order of 4000 tonnes, so just where is the problem?

Passage into Israel is also available for genuine hardship personal cases but we have to be cautious, our fingers have been burnt many times by terrorists abusing these border controls.

Der Spiegel in Germany http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,540689,00.html reports the story of Iman Shafii, 32, who finally became pregnant after fertility treatment. After two of the four small embryos died, the two remaining embryos became increasingly fragile. "You have to go to Israel," the doctor told her. She reached Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon just in time, giving birth on Feb. 25, by Caesarean section, to a girl, Bayan, and a boy, Faisal. Today is the first day she is permitted to hold her babies in her arms. As the tears well up in her eyes, Shafii says, "If the children had stayed in Gaza, they would not have survived."

Ironically, in Ashkelon, Shafii is encountering, for the first time, victims of the acts of terror committed by her own people. One of them is nine-year-old Yossi. A steel frame holds his left shoulder together after it was fractured by shrapnel from a rocket that landed in Sderot. "The people in Sderot are suffering just as we are in Gaza," she says.

In Beit Lahia in Gaza, her husband, Ashraf Shafii, describes how masked men repeatedly set up their rocket launchers under the cover of houses. "They shoot at Israeli civilians, which is completely unacceptable," says Shafii. "And they put us Palestinian civilians in grave danger, because the Israelis shoot back."

The Times of the UK also report on witnessing an eight-day-old Mohammed Amin El-Taian being carried across the Erez crossing to Israel by a doctor from the Gazan Ministry of Health and handed to his counterpart from Magen David Adom (MDA), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. Mohammed - crippled by a chest infection, and heart and gastric problems - was then transferred along with his mother to the Dana Children's Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was to get the emergency treatment needed to save his life. MDA says that around five patients a week are transferred into Israel for treatment.

Yonni Yogadovsky, of the Israeli MDA, said, "This is an established procedure and people from the hospitals [in Gaza] and Hamas know about it. We are neighbors and it happens that we don't like each other very much. But when it comes to emergencies that save human lives, this is beyond political disputes."

More on Annapolis

It concerns me that we seem to becoming immune to the daily (yes daily reports) such as the one below received from the army spokesman’s office.

“Overnight, 3 Palestinian gunmen attempted to infiltrate into Israel through the security fence between Israel and the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

An observation force identified the three gunmen as they were attempting to cross the fence into Israel in the area of the Israeli community of Nativ Ha'asara. The gunmen exchanged fire with an IDF post near the security fence.

A Golani brigade force responded by firing at the gunmen and identified hitting two of them. There were no injuries to IDF soldiers.

Yesterday, approximately 25 Kassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. Over 135 were fired since the beginning of November.”

Yet here we are off to Annapolis in a matter of days (even though the invitations have still not been issued) and we don’t even know who is going to attend.

In today’s paper, only one commentator was expressing optimism, all others pessimism as to the outcome. Meanwhile the army is on high alert and expecting attacks as Annapolis approaches. The army reports at “least 10 high level alerts”.

Further, at a time when so many are pessimistic as to the outcome, in the Western Negev, the reactions to Annapolis are apparent day by day. Since the beginning of the month, official sources say that 110 Kassam rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into the Western Negev.

Almost 200,000 Israeli citizens -- including Ashkelon, Sderot and over 20 kibbutzim and Moshavim, now live under the daily bombardment of kasssam missiles fired from Gaza, while Egypt has facilitated the flow of hundreds of thousands of weapons, Ammunition since Israel's disengagement in August 2005, whole allowing Hamas to build a well trained organized army which numbers 13,000 fighters, many having had special training in Iran.

This is the surreal situation we are in.

A Humanitarian Crisis?

“If the economic sanctions that Israel has applied against the Gaza Strip in reducing fuel supplies are to be regarded as collective punishment, so should the economic sanctions that were imposed against South Africa during the apartheid years, or those against Iran today”’ writes Dan Izenberg in the Jerusalem Post.

Although there is lots of talk about cutting off supplies of electricity and fuel to Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that would result, the courts are preparing to hear this week a petitioners' request for a show-cause order to cancel the original decision.

What has actually happened thus far is that amount of gasoline allowed into Gaza had been cut from an average of 350,000-400,000 liters per week to 300,000 liters and the government is also considering a further, gradual reduction.

Diesel exports were cut from 1.4 million liters per week to 1.2 million liters. A government spokesman stated that "according to government estimates, the amount of fuel necessary to fulfill the Gaza Strip's humanitarian needs does not amount to more than 50 percent of the amount supplied today, and this is a conservative estimate which provides a significant safety margin."

The spokesman added that the export of diesel for use in Gaza's power station had been reduced from an average of 2.2 million liters to 1.75 million per week. It said that in September, the Palestinians in Gaza had added a third turbine to provide additional power. When only two turbines operate, the power station produces 55 megawatts of electricity. When the third one functions, supply goes up to 63 megawatts. The drop in diesel exports imposed by Israel last week means that the amount of electricity provided for Gaza will return to the pre-September level.

All in all, hardly a humanitarian crisis but meanwhile at least one woman was suffering from shock after three Kassam rockets were fired at Sderot late Sunday morning, Israel Radio reported. One of the rockets hit a house and another hit an electrical line, causing a complete blackout in the western Negev town.

The siren system and 106 emergency hotline were offline following the attack, leaving the town's residents without even the means to prepare in case another rocket salvo would follow later in the day.

And so the deliberate targeting of the Israeli civilians goes on.

Is It Getter Hotter or Cooler?

Weather wise I wonder if we are over the worst of the summer heat. Although the days have temperatures in the upper 80’s, the evenings are starting to be a bit more pleasant. We actually haven’t switch on the air conditioner on the last two evenings.

Another week and the clocks will go back as we go off summertime and on to wintertime. Meantime the country is preparing for the New Year holiday, shops are bustling with shoppers stocking up for the 3 day weekend, this being an unusual occurrence in Israel, 2 days of the New Year holiday and 1 day for the Sabbath.

However as the weather may be cooling down, the political areana is heating up. Last week, the official Syrian Arab News Agency http://www.sana.org/eng/22/2007/09/09/138435.htm began to report a claim that Israel Air Force jets had flown over northern Syria the previous night, and had been spotted and engaged by Syrian air defences. According to the initial reports, the Israeli planes broke the sound barrier and dropped munitions over uninhabited areas of northern Syria, before leaving Syrian airspace. The claim of dropping munitions was later changed to a claim that the Israeli jets had jettisoned fuel tanks which had landed on Syrian soil. Subsequently, the Turkish authorities showed photographs of what was purported to be the fuel tanks on Turkish soil.

The fact is that in spite of resolution 1701, the Hizbollah have threateningly announced that they have now rearmed and have 20,000 missiles available for attacking Israel. Last year before the war they had 14,000. In spite of the evidence, the United nations force seems unwilling or unable to stem the flow of weapons from Syria.

Meanwhile missiles galore rain down on Sderot and terrorist attempts continue unabated. A Palestinian teen detained by an IDF force at a checkpoint near Nablus Sunday was found to be carrying three pipe bombs meant to be used in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. IDF officers said terror organizations in Nablus, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front and Fatah, were making intensive efforts to launch attacks into Israel.

In the midst of all this we read that Hamas security forces wielding clubs on Friday beat protesters, hurled stun grenades and fired into the air to disperse open-air prayer meetings held by Fatah in defiance of a Hamas ban on such gatherings. Medical officials said 20 people were treated in hospital. Hamas men had set up checkpoints Friday morning throughout Gaza to prevent Fatah supporters from reaching the prayer sites. Demonstrations against Hamas were also held throughout the West Bank.

On the other foot, Palestinian security allied with the Fatah rulers of the West Bank beat Hamas protesters with clubs at a demonstration Sunday outside Hebron University. PA security forces forbade journalists from taking pictures, confiscating the camera of one photographer. Some journalists were also beaten. The Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association http://www.fpa.org.il/ issued a statement condemning the behavior of Palestinian security.

Let’s hope the New Year will bring us peace.

A New School Year

The new school year in Sderot http://sderotmedia.com/ got off to a fiery start with a bombardment of Sderot and its educational institutions by Hamas using Kassams and mortars. The Israel army struck several rocket launchers in northern Gaza soon after, saying” it refuses to allow Hamas to guard its rockets by placing them in populated areas.”
Hamas claims that three teenagers and children were killed in the air strike. What they did not say, however, was that these children had been sent by Hamas terrorists to adjust the launchers. The army identified five launchers with suspicious figures moving among them and launched the strike.
An army correspondent is quoted as saying that “this is not the first time this has happened. This phenomenon of Hamas paying ten shekels ($2.50) to children in order to retrieve the launchers has become the norm. The terrorists launch the rockets from afar via remote control and know that if they approach the launchers they will be hit, so they send young children.”
An army statement said: “As part of the ongoing defensive activity to protect Israeli civilians from terror threats this afternoon, the IDF targeted several Kassam launchers in the Beit Hanoun industrial area, which were placed by Palestinian terrorists and aimed at Israel. Several Palestinians were identified handling the launchers at the time. This area is often used to fire Kassam rockets at Israel.”
Nearly 300 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the month of August alone.
The previous night, soldiers intercepted a 15-year-old suicide bomber dispatched from northern Gaza.
This cynical use of children is, in my opinion, a direct consequence of the on-going indoctrination of Palestinian children. Now every Monday afternoon Al-Aqsa TV, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/eng_n/al_aqsa_e.htm the most important medium in Hamas’ media empire, broadcasts a children’s program called “Brilliant Children,” on which child experts in various fields are interviewed. The September 3 episode, a special for the beginning of the school year, featured a child named “Ahmad” (a name symbolizing all Palestinian children), whose field of expertise was defined as jihad (holy war). Such programs are meant to indoctrinate the younger generation of Palestinians with Hamas’ radical Islamic ideology, at the core of which is jihad. Such ideology is indoctrinated through Hamas’ educational system (kindergartens, schools and universities) and other means as well. It is all part of Hamas’ long-term strategy to train new generations of brainwashed Hamas operatives who will participate in the violent campaign to destroy Israel and wipe it off the map in accordance with its charter.

The North last Year, the South for a Year Plus

Whilst some of the world’s media do occasionally report a Kassam or mortar attack on S’derot in the south of the country, no-one (to my knowledge) seems to cover the daily trauma experienced by the residents of the area. This is an exact repetition of last year’s war in Lebanon, when you were hard pushed to find any reports on the trauma facing the northern population.

A friend in the south relates his and his wife’s personal experience last Thursday. As he starts his letter “I hope that none of you have to go thru a day like we had yesterday.”

He then goes on to tell how his day went; “we were not hurt nor anything like that but it was just a nerve racking day.

A group of Jewish American media people came to visit our senior center and hear from us and two more people who live in my area on what it is like living under the daily threat of Kassam and mortar shells.

Every thing went well until they were going to leave us when we had 3,yes 3 color red warnings about incoming Kassams. One of the Kassams landings we heard there may have been more booms but that was the only one I heard.

When we got home, we heard two big booms but until now we have no idea of what it was and if there was any damage.

In the evening I went to spinning and then later in the pool I heard a color red warning and I heard one boom from far away and another one close by.

In the mean time at home, my wife heard two large explosions and this time it was Mortar shells falling very close to the living area on the Kibbutz.

She also told me, when I got home, that there was a lot of weapons firing before and after the mortars.

My wife was asked by one of the visitors, why we don't leave S’derot and her answer was simply because this is our home. I glanced around at the visitors and it seemed to me that the answer was enough for them for I saw a few write down the answer and giving the expression of a good answer had been received.

Kibbutz Nir Am, which is going thru a tougher time then we are; they have been hit at least 20 times this last few months with Kassams and a lot of damage to their Kibbutz and like one said ‘many hours without things like electricity because of damage to their electoral supplies and electricians afraid to come to fix it’.

However, to finish on a good note; today, (Friday morning) they invited us and others for breakfast and a chance to show our solidarity with them. A large number of people from the neighboring Kibbutzim and from S’derot were there and a good time was had by all. The only problem was for me is that I ate too much and if you didn't know, I am on a diet!! Ah well back to the first week of the diet for me"

The ongoing trauma of living such a life is telling. Sounds that appear as though a siren is about to sound, still stirs the heart for many people momentarily for others more long lasting.

Just try to imagine a place not more than 5-6 miles away from you home being bombarded by "cheap, inaccurate" missiles, as reporters often report the Kassams

Qassam rocket lands in western Negev; no injuries reported

This received from a friend of mine today from a report a few hours ago

A Qassam rocket launched from the northern Gaza Strip at Israel landed in an open area near one of the kibbutzim of the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Now what is in italics is what is written or said in most of the updates, after a kassam has fallen. There were no injuries this time in blood or pain, that can be seen, and it was in an open area but my wife & I, were driving by when the Kassam fell, and it shook us up.

It is not the first time this has happened to us, but when you hear the "Red Warning"(for those of you who don't know what red warning is, it is a warning of up to 15 seconds, to let you know that a kassam is on it's way) and the daily falling of kassams, does get to you and in some way does mentally injure all of us, not to mention that there are injuries and damages and death from kassams.

Sunday my wife was in Sderot and within 5 mins time there were 5 "Red Alerts" warnings, none fell near her but one did fall at the school near were I was at. To us this has taken its toll and yet, we are not affected as much as the people in Sderot and near by Kibbutz Nir Am, so what feelings we have from this you can multiply that at least 5 times for those unfortunate people. So the next time you read or hear, There were no reports of injuries or damage, remember this letter.