Sderot is us

Ari Shavit, Haaretz, 5-28-07

Every night, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal tours his city, checking the number of houses with lights on. Last week the number of lights dropped each evening. On the eve of Shavuot it reached a nadir. Whole apartment blocks stood empty. On the street where Moyal himself lives only a few residents remained. At its height, Sderot had a population of 24,000, the exhausted mayor says. In recent years, when the Qassam attacks mounted, the number fell to about 20,000. But now, with the refugees whom Hamas chased out being scattered throughout the country, no more than 10,000 people remain in the city. And suddenly the feeling is that perhaps it has really happened: Perhaps Sderot has been broken.

But Sderot has still not been broken. If the rocket attacks cease, most people will return. Without security, without hope, without happiness - a depressing return to no-choice. So the basic fact remains: Sderot 2007 is a city that seems cursed. A frontier city with no home front. A frontier city with no aura of heroism. A frontier city that the government should protect, but isn't protecting. A frontier city that the nation should be standing behind, but is not. A frontier city abandoned by the center of the country.

It should not have been like this. Sderot is not Gush Katif. There is no debate. On the contrary: Sderot is a "Green Line" city. Sderot is a post-withdrawal city. Sderot is the righteous Israeli city after the occupation. Sderot is the future. Indeed, it is the litmus test that will teach us in real time what we can expect in the future when we withdraw completely. This being the case, Sderot should have been the apple of the eye of all those preaching withdrawal in the past, and of everyone who still believes in withdrawal. Sderot should have been the city of peace writers and peace singers and peace industrialists. A "peace now" city. A city of Israeli solidarity. A city of mutual responsibility. A city where strong Israelis stand together with Israelis who are less strong in the face of Islamic zealotry.

All this is not happening. Bank Hapoalim is funding the new emergency center there. But the large sum needed to renovate the city's shelters was raised by American evangelical Christians. The major community work in the city is being done by Hanan Porat. Yitzhak Mordechai is working in Sderot, and Arcadi Gaydamak is amusing himself there in the absence of the center of the country. Enlightened, satiated Israel is not standing with all its strength behind Sderot.

The attack on Sderot is a strategic attack on peace. It is an attack on the two-state solution. If the attack succeeds, there will be no chance of any future withdrawal. If the attack succeeds, the occupation will be perpetuated. Therefore, before the great political decision is made on how to act in Gaza, a moral decision has to be made about Sderot. Sderot must become the national project of the current period. Its residents cannot be expected to confront the Qassams alone. In the face of buses removing people from the city, buses of supporters must set out for it. In the face of the economic collapse of Sderot should come an unprecedented economic embrace of it by government and nongovernment bodies alike.

At the same time, it should be made clear that there is one law for Sderot and Tzahala: A Qassam on Sderot is like a Qassam on Kikar Hamedina. The insensitivity has got to stop. Sderot has to be defined as the Israeli front line. The struggle for the city should be viewed as both a struggle for Israeli sovereignty and as a symbol of the responsibility of Israelis for each other.

Sderot is us, all of us. We rise and fall with Sderot.

Kassam rocket lands in Sderot factory

Jerusalem Post, May 17, 2007

A Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a factory in Sderot on Thursday evening.

The factory burst into flames and firefighters worked frantically to extinguish the blaze.

No casualties were reported.

(An man is seen through the shattered glass of a car that was hit by a rocket in Sderot Thursday

Photo: AP)

Elsewhere, Kassam rockets landed in two western Negev Kibbutzim and south of Ashkelon.

In one of the kibbutzim a rocket landed on a petting zoo, injuring farmyard animals and causing damage.

Another rocket landed in an open area outside Sderot. No one was wounded and no damage was reported.

(A teacher comforts a student after a rocket hit their school in Sderot.
Photo: AP)

By 7 p.m., 16 Kassam hits had been reported in Sderot and the western Negev. Magen David Adom paramedics were treating a mother and her nine-year-old daughter, both of whom were suffering from shock. A car was also damaged.

Another rocket hit a high school near Sapir College earlier in the day, causing significant damage and lightly wounding two pupils.

A moshav in the Eshkol Regional Council also suffered a Kassam hit. One of its greenhouses was reportedly damaged, but no one was wounded.

SDEROT UNDER FIRE

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Meanwhile, dozens of Sderot residents barged into Mayor Eli Moyal's office, demanding his help in evacuating the city.

Israel Radio reported that more than 1,000 people had fled Sderot. Among the evacuees were 90 families with at least one member considered mentally disabled.

The angry Sderot residents stormed into the mayor's office after hearing that the Defense Ministry had ordered a halt to the evacuation of families from Sderot.

Also Thursday, a survey inspecting the shelters in the western Negev town showed that eighty bomb shelters in Sderot were unfit for use.

(May 16, 2007

18 wounded as 20 rockets hit Sderot. A young girl from Sderot reacts after her house was hit by a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip Tuesday.

Photo: AP )

Israel Radio reported that due to a shortage of funds to renovate the shelters, they were being used to store scrap metal.

Only 36 Sderot shelters are in active use, although they too are in need of extensive repair work, it emerged from the survey.

On Wednesday night, a Kassam rocket reportedly hit a four-story apartment building in the city. Several people were reportedly suffering from shock as a result, while another rocket hit a transformer, knocking out electricity in parts of the city.

Earlier Wednesday, the Sderot Municipality prepared to temporarily evacuate 4,000 residents after Palestinians fired approximately 50 rockets into the area around the Gaza border within 24 hours.

A 70-year-old woman sustained serious shrapnel wounds when a Kassam rocket hit her Sderot home, and was evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. A man was lightly wounded in the attack, and four others were treated for shock, bringing the total number of shock victims for the day to 18.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

Sderot mayor wants rockets stopped

Canadian Jewish News, 3-21-07

He knows because as part of his daily routine, he has to bear the brunt of complaints from his constituents in the southern development town of Sderot that more properly should fall in the laps of the two senior government ministers.

Faced with an unrelenting barrage of Qassam missiles from Palestinian controlled Gaza, the residents of Sderot “talk to me and see me like a prime minster, chief of staff or the defence minister,” he said.

“They tell me, it’s your job to do something. When I explain I can’t give orders to the army I stand there and get shouts and criticism in place of the government. I don’t mind, because they can’t see or talk to [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert or [Defence Minister] Amir Peretz.”

Though he tells this story in measured tones, it’s clear Moyal is quite angry at the Israeli government. He feels it has let down the community of 24,000 that is situated only one kilometre from the border with Gaza. As a result of its location, the town, as well as nearby kibbutzim, have been hit with numerous primitive, though deadly, missiles.

“We stopped counting after 4,000,” Moyal said last week following a breakfast briefing for a UJA Federation of Greater Toronto leadership group.

The missiles started raining down on Sderot in 2000 but the frequency increased markedly after Israel pulled out of Gaza in August 2005. Since the Palestinian “ceasefire,” more than 600 have been fired and in the period following the Mecca accord, the average has reached nearly two per day.

So far, seven residents of Sderot have been killed, hundreds wounded and hundreds of homes have been damaged.

Those are the statistics. But what is really affecting the quality of life in the town is the impact the missile attacks are having on children. As for the adults, “we’ll manage,” Moyal said stoically. “We served in the army and we know how to manage. We’re talking about the children, the soft souls.”

In Sderot, as in nearby kibbutzim, many “go into shelters at night.

“We’re talking about traumas and fears of children who cannot sleep. Kids who refuse to go outside after sunset. You have children sleeping in shelters, sleeping with parents, peeing the bed again.”

Others are taking various pills and medicines to help them cope.

“We’re talking about a lot of problems. We’re talking about something that has been studied at Tel Aviv University for the psychological impact on our children.

“One hundred per cent of Sderot children are suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome, which is very bad. This is a story nobody has heard about and we’re dealing with it every day.”

While the government has not provided the military solution Moyal is advocating, the response from other Israelis has been heartening. Many psychologists and social workers have visited the town to help the people cope. Respite programs have been put in place allowing residents to leave for a brief vacation.

But Moyal is adamant that what is really needed is a military strike to stop the missiles from being launched and to deter further attacks. The past three Israeli governments, two headed by Ariel Sharon and the current Olmert administration, “did nothing to stop these missiles,” he said.

“They are wrong in their policy. They think by talking, it will end. They think that by giving land to the Palestinians, it would bring some sheket (quiet). They were wrong.”

Moyal pointed out the intensity of the rocket attacks increased after Palestinians were handed all of Gaza. The lesson he learned is plain: “We didn’t react properly in the beginning. We didn’t ask them to pay a full price for shooting on civilians. We accepted it. That’s why it continued.”

Asked what the full price should be, Moyal replied, “I don’t care. My mitzvah (commandment) is to prevent [those] who are trying to kill me.”

Israel “should destroy the places they are shooting from.” Palestinians should be warned and then the Israel Defence Force should “destroy the whole area.” The IDF should re-enter the Palestinian territory and “clean the Gaza and go back home.

“But we didn’t use that [tactic] at the beginning in the right way, that’s why they continue.”