15 Seconds

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
12 January '11

15 seconds. As I noted in my post yesterday, that’s the time Israelis who live within reach of Gaza rockets have to take shelter from the moment the civil defense sirens wail.

However, while touring Kibbutz Nahal Oz, the site of Saturday’s mortar attack, we learned that such projectiles (as opposed to rocket fire) aren’t detected by Israeli monitoring devices, leaving residents absolutely no warning before impact.

Dov Hartuv, a long time resident of the community, came to Israel forty years ago but, by his own admission, his native South African accent hasn’t diminished a bit.

Nahal Oz was first founded by a group of soldiers who served in the “Nahal” Israeli army unit opposite Gaza, in 1953.

The Kibbutz has had its ups and downs, and the current danger posed by rocket fire from Hamas is seen in the context of previous threats they’ve lived through over the years.

During the first fourteen years – when Gaza was controlled by Egypt – Nahal Oz suffered from artillery shelling and mines planted in their fields. (Parts of the kibbutz fields straddle Gaza.) There were also many border infiltrations during that period. Four members of the kibbutz were killed during the first few years of the new settlement, Dov told us.

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