Living with Rockets: From Tel Aviv to Sderot

On Friday February 15, Sderot Media Center conducted a tour for representatives from five foreign embassies; Argentina, Romania, Denmark, Finland, and South Africa.

I met the group of embassy representatives in Tel Aviv and accompanied them on the 50 minute drive to Sderot. It is always amazing to see just how short of a drive it is from central Israel to the western Negev. As the diplomats pointed out, Sderot is not as geographically isolated from the rest of Israel as we tend to think.

There were no red alerts on rocket attacks that Friday while the delegation was visiting but the group was somewhat able to grasp what life is like under rocket fire by visiting the Kassam gallery, a buffered school, and a home devastated by the attack.
 
The devastated home had the most pronounced effect on the diplomats. As they entered the vicinity, an elderly grandmother could be seen sitting on a stool, while leafing through the real estate section of the newspaper. She and her husband are in their 60s and their home was hit a week before. The elderly couple must now find a new apartment to relocate to as soon as possible.

It was a chance for the diplomats to see first hand how the elderly in Sderot must cope with the rocket fire and the story of this couple, the Zagzags, is unusually tragic but unfortunately typical of many Sderot families who have been displaced by the Kassam fire.

The Zagzags have six children and 20 grandchildren living in Sderot. The grandmother tells the group that she and her husband, owners of the home, have to find temporary residence immediately. They have little money and have been living in the homes of their children during this time. 

The grandmother tells me quietly, "my children don't have much money either and they can't afford to house me and my husband for much longer. I went to all the government agencies and have received nothing in monetary reparations."

Her daughter arrives to help her parents pack boxes of belongings. The furniture is already outside, and the home has been basically cleaned out. Inside, the roof of the beautiful home is collapsing as sunlight pours through the holes into the empty rubble-filled living room. An especially large gap can be seen in the ceiling where the rocket fell through after it exploded on the roof.  "My parents have been living outside their home like this for too long," the daughter states.

"The only items they were able to receive were free clothes because all their clothing has been buried under the rubble of the explosion."

The diplomats photograph the scene and try a few words of broken Hebrew with the grandmother. She looks tired and bleary eyed, but states that she wishes she could provide the guests with some tea. Soon her husband arrives and I translate what he has to say to the group. The husband explains to the diplomats that he built this home with his own hands forty years ago.

"I don't have strength to build again," he says. His hands tremble and he looks around the memories of his skeletal house with sadness. "All our grandchildren would come here. It was the central place for our family--dinners, games, conversations--now no more"

One of the diplomats, a representative of the Romanian embassy, says to me, "So this is what one inexpensive rocket, probably a few dollars to make, can do to a family and their home on the other side of Gaza."

The damages to the Zagzag home will cost hundreds of thousands of shekels to repair. The insurance company will pay for one fourth of the estimated costs, says the grandmother. The family does not have the money to pay for the rest of the damage. It will also take several months before the home is actually repaired.

It is a sobering visit for the group, an eye-opener to those embassy representatives who have never visited Sderot. As one diplomatic representative of the Danish embassy perfectly summed up, " To read about the rocket fire in the news is one thing, but to actually see the consequences--a home partially destroyed and the owners displaced with nowhere to go-- is unbelievable."

What is also unbelievable, is that the residents of Sderot are living a devastating reality only an hour away from Tel Aviv. Or perhaps it really is one of those believable absurdities of living in Israel.