Living with Rockets: Psychological trauma increasing among Sderot residents

"Rockets scare me," says Niv Chen, an 8-year old elementary school student who goes to school in Sderot. As Niv gets into the car, on his way to school, he asks his older brother, Eliran, to lower the car windows, so that he can hear the Tzeva Adom. The Tzeva Adom, or Red Color alert is the siren that warns Sderot residents of impending Palestinian rockets and allows residents 15 seconds to escape to shelter.

Niv and countless other children in Sderot have been living with Palestinian rocket fire for almost 8 years. Many have trouble concentrating in school and suffer from anxiety attacks.

In a recent study conducted by NATAL (Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War), researchers discovered that close to 56% of Sderot residents have suffered in some way from Palestinian rocket attacks. According to the report, presented this past week by Natal Community Staff Director, Dr. Roni Berger, nearly half of Sderot's population has been either physically or emotionally damaged by Palestinian rocket fire.
 
One third of Sderot children, ages 13 to 18, have trauma-related learning disorders. Approximately 4, 000 Sderot residents are suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD).
 
PTSD is a severe and ongoing reaction to a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm, according to the National Institute for Mental Health. People who develop PTSD may have witnessed someone who was harmed in a traumatic event or were victims themselves.
 
Symptoms of PTSD usually begin three months after the ordeal but can also emerge years afterward. Some people can recover within 6 months while others have symptoms that last for much longer. For some people, the condition becomes chronic. PTSD is a disorder that is commonly known to develop among soldiers returning from war.

Dr. Adrianne Katz, head of the Sderot Mental Health Center says that the shock impacts the victim's ability to function for months after experiencing a Palestinian rocket explosion. "Many rocket terror victims suffer from depression, sleepless nights, severe anxiety, and have trouble going back to a regular routine," she says. "Children return to wetting their beds and often experience nightmares at night."

During periods of intense rocket fire, Sderot parents opt to use the first floor of their homes. The living room or shelter becomes the sleeping quarters for the entire family. "We live in a constant state of fear," says Yehudit Dahan a Sderot mother of three. 
 
The NATAL study also showed that it is not only Sderot children who suffer from symptoms of PTSD. Although the study found that adults living within rocket range in the Negev often dealt better with rocket attacks than their counterparts in Sderot, their children did not. Close to 75% of children living in Gaza vicinity communities, ages 12-14 suffer from symptoms of PTSD compared to 86% of Sderot children.

ON a quiet day, Sderot experiences on average three rocket attacks. Although Kassam rockets cannot target specific objects, they are fired at specific times during the day. Hamas and other Palestinian networks are fully aware of the psychological impact of the rocket fire and will therefore fire rockets during the early morning hours, as Sderot children are heading to school and once again in the afternoon when parents come to pick up them up. Another rocket is usually fired towards evening.

"Since the rocket fire began," says Yehudit Dahan, "my cell phone bills have sky- rocketed. I'm constantly on the phone calling my kids every time the siren alert sounds to make sure that they safely made it to a shelter before the Palestinian rocket hits the city."
 
Niv's older brother, Eliran, says that his little brother handles the rocket attacks better than most kids. "He doesn't become hysterical or starts crying like his classmates  do when a rocket explodes," says Eliran. "He's usually calm but you can see that he is constantly on the alert for the siren Tzeva Adom."

The term, 'collective punishment, so often used to describe the situation in Gaza by the international media can rightly be used to describe the psychological devastation of Sderot. Why must Sderot children pay the heavy price for the terror tactics employed by Hamas and other Palestinian networks against Israel? The constant state of panic and stress that plagues Sderot and Negev children is a continuing ordeal that remains their story alone.

Anav Silverman is a student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and works for Sderot Media Center in Sderot (www.sderotmedia.com).