Who is fooling who?
The other day in Sderot, I made an astonishing observation. I was walking from the office after a long day at work to catch some sleep when I noticed I was not walking alone. Usually the city is deadly quiet once the sun sets, as parents refuse to let children play outside in the dark. Families prefer to remain at home together after a long day of siren alerts and rocket explosions.
High school kids don't ride around as much with the music blasting and teenagers don't walk around listening to their Ipods in case the 'tzeva adom', red color alert sounds. There's not much to do at night except maybe watch a movie and hope that Hamas rocket launchers decide to go to sleep, so that those us living in Sderot can relax just a little bit.
Comments (20)Al Jazeera and Sderot
On Thursday evening, May 29, 2008 a group of Israeli and Arab college students were aired live on Al Jazeera from Haifa where they participated in a special two-hour program. The college students, studying at Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion, Haifa, and Bar Ilan universities, were asked questions about the future of the state of Israel and about the history and present situation of its citizens.
As one of three students from Bar Ilan University invited to a special Al Jazeera program about Israel, I found myself on an usually warm night debating the future state of Israel with Fayid, Ranin, and several other Arab students studying at Israeli universities.
The whole evening was a bit surreal. Here I was, in Haifa, taking about the future of the state of Israel with people who clearly had a very different idea of the Jewish state. All this on the last TV station I would ever imagine appearing on to talk about Sderot--Al Jazeera!
Netivot: The next Sderot?
This past Saturday, May 24, two red alert sirens activated throughout the western Negev city of Netivot. Two grad Katyusha rockets, fired at the city's population of 30,000, fell in open fields.
Founded in 1956 as development town, Netivot is home to a large number of Sephardi Jews from Morocco and was established three years after the formation of Sderot. Although Netivot has not experienced rocket fire as intensely as Sderot, Hamass more frequent use of grad Katyushas is making Netivot a target for Palestinian rocket fire.
Netivot is about 11 kilometers away from Gaza, slightly further away from the Gazan border than Ashkelon. The first grad Katyusha struck Netivot back in October 2007, landing several hundred meters away from a residential area in Netivot.
Craters, glass and shrapnel
Throughout Saturday afternoon, I heard a number of alarms followed by a number of loud explosions as several rockets hit Sderot. I did not know where they had hit and I decided to go looking for them when the sun went down and the Sabbath ended.
A constant problem here is that we hear the loud KABOOM! when the rocket lands, but we often have no way of knowing exactly where the explosion occurred - unless, of course, the rocket went through the roof of someone's house. We too are dependent on the news media to learn exactly what has happened, but the TV and radio do not mention the address where the rocket fell, because most of their audience does not live in Sderot.
Breaking the calm during Passover
It seemed that Sderot residents were going to experience a rare day of quiet on Tuesday, April 22. Around eveningtime at 19:30 pm, however, two Kassams fired from northern Gaza, broke the calm. One rocket hit a Sderot home, damaging the building and sending several people into shock.
The owners of the home, Michael and Evgenia Zaretskay, who immigrated from Belarus 17 years ago, were downstairs when the rocket hit.
"I was upstairs when the second siren of the evening went off," says Evgenia. "My husband told me to come down immediately. I went down and seconds later we heard the awful explosion. I knew our home had been hit."
Church Group visits Sderot
Members of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), a program of the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva , visited Sderot this past Sunday, March 30.
"This is our first visit to Sderot," said Valentina Maggiulli, the Jerusalem local program coordinator for EAPPI. "We know the situation in the West Bank and Gaza very well. We felt it was important to see the situation in Sderot as well."
EAPPI has church personnel stationed in Hebron , Yanoun, Tulkarem, Jerusalem , Jayyous and Bethlehem . Personnel come from countries all over Europe to help negotiate resolutions and facilitate peace activities in strategic locations.
McCain in Sderot
On a quiet Wednesday afternoon, a helicopter landed in Sderot with two US senators on board. Republican presidential nominee, John McCain and US senator Joseph Lieberman, who toured Israel for two days, made time to stop by this rocket-battered town in the western Negev.
They were received with the typical small-town warmth. "We are happy that they have come. They were brave to come," said one Sderot mother of the American visitors. She stops to watch the security vehicles and black sedans race by as McCain and Leiberman, accompanied by Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak rush to visit the Amar family whose home was hit by a rocket three months before.
Skewed perceptions
Last Sunday, several South African diplomats and a political science professor from an American university came to visit Sderot. It was a typical tour through Sderot with rather atypical reactions from the visitors.
Usually, foreign visitors express shock and sympathy towards the victims of rocket terror. I was then, more than surprised when the visitors asked a Sderot grandmother whose home was recently wrecked by a Kassam rocket, the following questions.
"Do you feel for the Palestinian grandmother who is in the same condition as you?"
"What would you say to the women in Gaza who are also suffering?"
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.
A typical day in Sderot
I begin the week working for Sderot Media Center in Sderot, realizing that I am coming to work in a middle of a war-zone. There are all kinds of indicators of Sderot being a rocket-shelled city besides the sirens and rocket explosions. Streets are emptier than usual, Sapir college usually teeming with life, has few students on campus, schools have let out traumatized students early, and the list goes on.
Simply speaking to residents makes one understand that the Israelis of this region live in fear for 24 hours, seven days a week, even on days where there are only three rocket attacks.
Everyday errands like buying food in the supermarket or mailing letters in the post office have become routines of terror and fear as these routines are punctuated by red alert sirens and rocket attacks.
About this blog Living with Rockets
A glimpse into life under fire as told by inhabitants of Sderot, young people who devote their time to volunteer in the city and by writers from the Sderot Media Center.
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