Sderot's residents are fed up with Goldstone
Sderot and western Negev residents experienced another week of sporadic rocket fire from northern Gaza as the General Assembly of the United Nations began its debate on the Goldstone probe into alleged Israeli war crimes, on Wednesday, November 4. Two days before the General Assembly debate began, a rocket fired from northern Gaza triggered the Color Red alarm system in Sderot, sending residents racing to the city's newly built bomb shelters. The rocket landed in the Sha'ar HaNegev region, about five minutes away from Sderot. There were no injuries or damage reported. A week earlier, another rocket struck an open field in the Eshkol region of the western Negev. The director of the Sderot Mental Health Center, Dr. Adriana Katz, recently spoke to Sderot Media Center about the UN's indifference to the mental health crisis which has resulted from years of a rocket attacks on the city. "Judge Goldstone knows nothing of the Israeli trauma victims whose lives have become hell because of these rocket attacks. They can no longer go to work. Every noise, bleep or beep sends them into a panic, and they suffer daily from fear and insecurity," says Katz, who immigrated to Israel from Romania and lives with her family in Ashkelon, has served as the head psychiatrist of the Sderot Mental Health Center for 15 years. "The Sderot Mental Health Center has 6,500 patient files that have opened as a result of the trauma symptoms experienced by Sderot residents," she said. "There is no post-trauma reality here in Sderot. The number of patients is growing every day. There are residents who need years of rehabilitation before they will be able to function normally again." Dr. Katz specifically refers to the generation of "Kassam children," or children who have grown up under the intense pressure of rocket fire and continue to wet their beds at night while fearing to leave their homes. "You cannot photograph a destroyed psyche and broadcast it all over the world," she said. "It is clear that Goldstone and his committee have been significantly impacted by the footage of Gaza from the three-week Operation Cast Lead. But we have nine years of rocket attacks that have severely damaged Jewish children and adults. And their plight has been completely ignored by the UN." "Would Judge Goldstone agree to live under such conditions?" Sderot students ready for school bells - and rocket sirens
Although the third Hamas-Israel cease-fire is still in effect, Sderot schoolchildren began the 2009 school year both excited and apprehensive. Two days before the doors to Sderot's nine schools opened, on Sunday, August 30, two rockets fired from Gaza triggered the city's rocket warning system, known as the Color Red siren, and sent residents racing for a shelter. "I was scared but not surprised," says Rotem, a 16-year-old Sderot student beginning eleventh grade at a local Sderot high school. "We know that the rocket attacks will begin again and I don't think that anyone here really believes that the quiet will last. We've lived here [in Sderot] long enough to know that," she said. Dina Huri, principal of a Sderot elementary school, made sure the new school year would offer everything to her first to sixth grade students, including upgraded school shelters against future rocket attacks. "During the summer, I had the three school bomb shelters made 'kid-friendly,'" she said. Huri had the shelter painted in bright colors, and installed rugs so the children would feel more comfortable. She doesn't remember the exact date the shelters were first installed - "they've been around for a while" - but said the original concrete grey slabs made children feel imprisoned. "Last year, every time the siren blared, the students had to run into these concrete structures, wondering when they could leave. Now these shelters are places that the students want to play in," she said. In any case, Sderot residents had another reason to expect rocket fire on the opening day of this school year. Mitchell's peace message isn't reaching the Islamic media
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad this week, US envoy George Mitchell stated that the US administration under Barack Obama is determined to carry out a "truly comprehensive" Arab-Israeli peace deal. "That peace means between Palestinians and Israelis, between Syria and Israel, and between Lebanon and Israel," Mitchell stated. Mitchell also called on the full normalization of relations between Israel and all the countries in the region. The term "comprehensive peace" came up often in Mitchell's outlining of US expectations for the Middle East region to reporters. But behind the positive attitude and optimistic language that has characterized the Obama administration's quest for peace in the region - something other US presidents have tried and failed to achieve - there is something missing. Humanizing Hamas: An NYTimes objective gone wrong
The New York Times recently published an interview with Hamas's political chief, Khaled Mashal, entitled Addressing US, Hamas Says It Grounded Rockets. In the interview, the Times takes a very sympathetic approach to Hamas leader, who was just elected to his fourth term as Hamas's political bureau chief, the post he has held since 2004. The Times attempts to portray a new more "moderate" Mashal, in the hopes that Hamas is actually turning a new leaf. In the article, The Times quotes Mashal as asking Americans to disregard the Hamas charter, (steeped in anti-Semitic declarations), while also stating that Iran does "not control or affect Hamas policies." The Times also quotes Mashal saying that Hamas has no interest in bringing strict Muslim law into Gaza. UNRWA, where is the money going?
In recent years, billions of dollars have poured into Gaza from hundreds of countries and international organizations. How much of that money has actually reached Palestinian civilians, effectively improving their quality of life and economy, has yet to be completely determined, thanks to vague audits and on-line information. Only recently, with a relatively silent international press, have there been questions from top political leaders, primarily from the US, about the way in which the donor money will be transferred into Gaza. At an Egyptian donors' conference organized by Norway and Egypt in early March, more than 75 international donors and organizations met to announce their financial support of the reconstruction in Gaza. Over $5.2 billion were pledged at the conference, surprising the Palestinian Authority, which had originally called for $2.8 billion. In light of the US pledge of $900 million, the second largest following Saudi Arabia's $1b. pledge at the conference, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that no US funds earmarked for Gaza would end up in the "wrong hands." Waiting for Peace to Make an Appearance
As I travel down to Sderot to begin another week working at our Sderot Media Center office, I'm reminded of Shakespeare's famous line: "All the world's a stage." Sderot, a small Israeli city located less than a mile away from Gaza, is in its own right a stage for weekly rocket attacks, post trauma victims and visiting politicians. Iran, Hamas and Obama
As US President Barack Obama makes historic overtures in attempting to foster open dialogue with Iran, the rest of world watches in optimistic anticipation. The UK's Guardian recently reported that Obama's administration drafted a letter to Iran "aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks." Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has welcomed US overtures saying that:
Change or no change, residents of southern and northern Israel have reason to be wary of Iran, a country that continues to fund Hamas and Hizbullah terrorism operations. Human Rights for Sderot residents
Liraz Madmony, 23 of Sderot, grew up under Palestinian rocket fire. Although a rocket has never directly hit her home, Liraz has experienced the terror of rocket explosions countless times over the past eight years. "We don't have a bomb shelter in our house," she says. "Every time, the Tzeva Adom is set off, our family races to the shower, the only room that is most 'secure' from a rocket attack." Liraz, a law student in a Ramat Gan college in central Israel, is heavily involved with student organizations such as WUJS (World Union of Jewish Students). "Many times I've missed my law classes and student activities because of the rocket attacks. It's almost impossible to lead a normal life when you are forced to live under with warning alerts and raining rockets." Defining war crimes
Type in 'war crimes' in Google and you get both the Wikpedia definition and examples of countries associated with the term including Japan, US, and...Israel. The coupling of 'war crime' and Israel is not new, and indeed much of the international media and foreign leadership favors using the term to describe Israel's current offensive operations in the Gaza Strip. The Wall Street Journal on January 10, published an article entitled "Israel is Committing War Crimes" by George Bisharat. Bisharat writes that "Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes." Averaging one grad per hour
There we were, a sunny Monday morning, averaging maybe one grad per hour from about 10:30 am when once again, the siren wailed. We ran downstairs under a hallway in my mother-in-law's house. My neice and one of my sons were with her and just as we got to the hall, this enormous "BOOM!" shook the house. "It's here!" my son and husband yelled together. "Nobody move!" We waited for less than a minute (although you have to wait 5 but we couldn't) and ran outside, noticing that the window over the kitchen sink had a huge hole in it and what was left was all cracked. Smoke was coming from the houses across the street and at first, we thought it was there. Then we thought it had landed around our friends' house behind those houses and knowing Miki was alone and on the hysterical side, ran over to her house. |
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