Living with Rockets: An eerie week

Shalom from Sderot!

It was a very eerie week - it was so quiet and the helicopters and fighter planes reminded us of the hornet's nest less than a kilometer (1/2 a mile) away in Gaza. We were able to function normally for almost a whole week (last Friday until last night, Wednesday). Of course, we still knew that, though we had a small breather, it wouldn't be forever. 

Last night - 11pm, 12am, 2am - we had so many "Tzeva Adom" warnings and BOOMs. I don't know where the Kassam rockets fell - but the fact that we didn't see anything on the news means at least that no one got hurt. The Arabs in Gaza claim that they only send Kassam missiles in retaliation to Israel's anti-terrorist activities, so when we heard that 4 terrorists were killed we knew we'd be in for some more Kassams.

This past Thursday night when a terrorist murdered my son's good friend and classmate, Yochai Lifshitz hy"d, (an 18 year old 12th grader, one of the 8 massacred in Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav), he also managed to critically injure my other son's friend, Naftali (benGila Rachel) - 14 years old, 9th grader. Naftali is still in serious condition with wounds in his leg and internal organs - we pray that Hashem sends him a full recovery. Naftali was born in Sderot and went to learn in Jerusalem. My son and 4 of his friends will be joining him there next year.

So...even though we didn't have Kassam missiles for a few days, we experienced tragedy. The whole city of Sderot was additionally involved because everyone knows the Shitrit family and joined in many prayer groups for the recovery of Naftali.