For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.
...While dance instructors anywhere else in the world might be concerned over issues of students facing personal problems or being ill, Dror is anxious: “Will we be able to rehearse? Will we get to finish that rehearsal or will the rocket sirens go off? After all, it’s my responsibility to put on a show even under rocket fire.”
David E. Kaplan..
Lay of the Land..
23 October '19..
A planned dance performance on the Gazan border reminds me of the Gulf War of 1991 when Iraq were raining Scud missiles down on Israel and maestro Zubin Mehta raced back from New York to conduct concerts. “I had many obligations in New York that should have prevented me from coming, but I couldn’t imagine not being here,” he said at the time, while he was director of the New York Philharmonic. He conducted full-house concerts keeping his gas mask nearly as close to him as his baton, “just in case!”
“Can you imagine,” he told this writer in an exclusive interview on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2016 in Tel Aviv, “Scuds where dropping out of the sky, possibly with chemicals but this did not deter Israelis from wanting to hear classical music.”
It sent a powerful and poignant message not to the likes of Saddam Hussein – a waste of time – but to the people of Israel who were asserting, despite the dire situation, their grit and love of culture.
Fast forward to the present and again that characteristic is being expressed by Liat Dror‘s Sderot-based dance company which is staging a performance on the Gazan border to express “our humanity” in the face of living under constant attack. “It’s my responsibility to put on a show even under rocket fire,” says a proud and defiant Liat, artistic director at the Sderot Adama Dance Company.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.
...They swallowed their pain, even when some living in the Gaza periphery for months called them "occupiers" and demanded that they "come home." The kibbutzniks were convinced that if their neighbors in the old Gaza periphery would just pack up their belongings, there would be peace on Israel, and the Palestinians would turn their swords into plowshares.
Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
17 August '14..
More than 6,000 mortars fell on Gush Katif communities in its last years. Mortars are known for their incoming whistle and the explosion just after they hit. There is no siren or Color Red alert for the mortars, which caused destruction and anxiety but could not force the residents out of their homes. Unlike some Tel Avivians during the Gulf War, unlike some of the residents of Kiryat Shmona when Katyusha rockets were fired at them, and unlike some of the Gaza periphery residents only recently, the people of Gush Katif exemplified unrecognizable Jewish steadfastness. Every day of green grass, laundry drying in the breeze, planting in greenhouses and studying Torah -- even when the sword of their brothers who would forcibly evacuate them rested on their necks -- was for them an almost holy commandment. We are the country's bulletproof vest, they said, not concealing their pride.
The forgotten history of Gush Katif is relevant today. Not as criticism of those who chose to leave their Gaza border homes until things were over (more than a few chose to stay, but the media focused on those who left) -- the people of Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz or Ein Hashlosha have every right to evacuate their children and themselves to a safe place and demand that the state provide them with security. No one who isn't in their place can judge them.
In contrast, the heroic story of Gush Katif is a story that should be retold today, because at the time the people there were accused by some sectors of the Israeli public of "sacrificing their children" and using them for political purposes. The "Gushniks" who were carrying on the great Zionist tradition of devotion and keeping hold of the Land in the face of disease, plague, terrorist attacks and war did not leave; they quietly swallowed the insults. They were silent when it became clear that the army was responding to the increasing shelling on Sderot, while ignoring the shelling on them. They even kept quiet when their neighbors in Sderot saw their city included in the list of border conflict communities (a status that grants significant material benefits), while they, who had been attacked much more for years, were ignored.
They swallowed their pain, even when some living in the Gaza periphery for months called them "occupiers" and demanded that they "come home." The kibbutzniks were convinced that if their neighbors in the old Gaza periphery would just pack up their belongings, there would be peace on Israel, and the Palestinians would turn their swords into plowshares. Now, after many have asked the residents of Gush Katif for forgiveness, it's time for the residents of the Gaza periphery communities to do the same.
...The peace train might have set out according to Kerry’s timetable, but I wonder how it is going to safely reach its destination. My idea of normal is being able to invest in growth and prosperity for the benefit of all, without having to sidetrack funds to fortify railway stations and hospitals.
Liat Collins..
My Word/JPost..
27 December '13..
Sometimes putting a positive spin on things can leave you reeling. For instance, this week the media in Israel reported that Sderot, whose name has become the symbol of the missile-prone communities of the South, has finally got its own railway station – the first rocket-proof station in the world.
As achievements go, it’s the equivalent of a backhanded compliment. Surely Sderot residents would rather go down in history for something more momentous than an attempt to get on with their lives – to keep the trains running on time literally and figuratively – even in times of tension, terror and war.
Visitors to Sderot are often shown the collection of Kassam missile shells that have been turned into metal sculptures and, even more poignantly, the bombproof playground where local children can safely do what kids do – run, jump, climb and slide – regardless of what is thrown at them from across the nearby border with Gaza.
I’m sure that the citizens of the small, close-knit town would prefer to be known as a cultural center in the Negev desert with a cinematheque and a very decent annual film festival.
Or perhaps they’re waiting for an outstanding graduate of Sapir Academic College to put them on the map for something that can make them proud.
Farmers from kibbutzim and moshavim bordering Gaza can also boast, if they want, the world’s first armored tractors, although the country on the whole prefers to be known for its tremendous successes in agriculture, from creating different strains of fruit and vegetables to pioneering drip irrigation and desert- farming techniques.
The newly inaugurated railway means that Sderot is now about an hour away from Tel Aviv by train. Missiles, as we saw in last November’s Operation Pillar of Defense, reach the country’s commercial capital much faster – as those who opposed the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 warned they would; it’s one of those cases in which being able to say “Told you so!” is not satisfying.
Israel has other achievements that we wish we did not need – including missile-proof emergency rooms. Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, for instance, celebrating its 75th anniversary this week, is the largest and most advanced hospital in the North. Its doctors, researchers and staff have saved countless patients – it has treated Syrian patients who were victims of the civil war, and I once met an Iranian who told me his baby sister survived only because she underwent cardiac surgery at Rambam, in the days of the shah.
But, inevitably, the medical center has a footnote in the history books as the first hospital to be fully equipped with a missile-proof emergency unit, a need recognized after the 2006 Second Lebanon War when the city took a beating from missiles courtesy of Iran’s proxy Hezbollah.
On behalf of myself and the residents of Sderot and other towns near the Gaza border: I would like to see the bleeding hearts harboring double standards, who purport to pursue universal justice, rise up and fight for our children's right to a happy and healthy childhood with the same fervor they fight for their own children and the children of Gaza. We have had enough terror destroying our children's souls.
David Buskila..
Israel Hayom..
04 April '13..
When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Israel recently, we fell in love with his captivating personality. His trip to the Holy Land represented one great hope: that his visit would launch a process that will ultimately, we are praying, bring peace.
On the second day of his trip, when his voice echoed across the Mukata government compound in Ramallah, filled with the hope of peace, a rocket warning pierced the air in Sderot and a rocket exploded against the wall of the Haziza home. The rocket sent the family's youngest daughter, Lian, on an endless journey of fear and anxiety, and broke the sweet calm that had prevailed in Israel for four months. It shattered the naive delusion of a peaceful childhood, sending us all back to the reality that has been the essence of our daily lives for some 12 years.
That one salvo brutally stripped the illusion of absolute silence from the scarred collective memory that is shared by local residents who must live this nightmare, and whose scars may never heal.
Greetings to all, my name is Nachalah, I am a 24-year-old student. I am studying communications and graphic designing at Sapir College… Sapir College in Southern Israel is under fire, situated near Sderot and the surrounding Kibbutzim, where the bravest children in the world live.
Why choose Sapir College when there are many other good academic institutions in Israel, why learn under fire when I can learn under a clear blue sky where the only thing that fall on you are the autumn leaves? I didn’t really choose Sapir, but rather it chose me. Our romance began in July, about a year and a half ago. Yonatan, a friend, invited me to go on a short trip to the south. He went apartment hunting in the Sderot area, and I joined him.
We visited Kibbutz Mefalsim, about two kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. I fell in love with the place, the green and the serenity. During the period since the visit I was discharged from the IDF, and was contemplating my future. I rented a place at the Kibbutz and enrolled at Sapir College. I knew about the Kassam rockets, but was told that the campus was protected and properly fortified.
How did you spend your Sunday? Most parents in Israel dropped their children off at school and then went to work. Parents outside of Israel likely spent the day with their children doing recreational activities, shopping, and visiting family.
I spent Sunday in Sderot, Israel and got a small taste of how the residents of this city live every day of their lives – in fear.
A group of friends and neighbors in Bet Shemesh planned a solidarity visit to Sderot after we heard that residents were feeling isolated and abandoned in light of the rocket attacks that escalated in recent weeks. We decided to continue with those plans despite the fact that our contacts in Sderot warned that it had become a “war zone” in the 24 hours leading up to our trip. We wanted to be there to support our brothers and sisters specifically in their greatest time of need.
As we made the 45 minute drive from Bet Shemesh to Sderot we received word that a few rockets had hit that morning and at least three people were injured. We continued on our way feeling an even greater need to show our solidarity.
And, when we arrived, it was truly a war zone.
We arrived in Kfar Aza and met with Adva Klein. That morning Adva was walking when the red alert siren went off but she could not find shelter in time. The rocket hit nearby and she was spared injury from the rocket and its shrapnel. But, gunpowder flew into her eyes from the explosion. She met with us right after coming from the doctor who gave her eye drops to treat the stinging and burning from the powder.
Adva began telling us about how difficult life had become in Kfar Aza when, all of a sudden, we heard a loud boom, then a whistling sound, and then the red alert. There was no time to run for a shelter. We all dropped to the ground near cars which were parked all around us and covered our heads. Then we heard the boom from that rocket.
Thank God, we were all okay – physically. But those few seconds colored the rest of our day in that region. Emotionally, we were thrust into the mode in which all of the one million residents within striking range from Gaza live daily – on edge, scared, always on the lookout for the nearest shelter, and reacting with fear to every little noise which resembles a siren, a whistle, or an explosion.
First a quick look at this morning's latest from This Ongoing War:
Multi-rocket attack on southern Israel at 6 this morning
A number of Gazan rockets were fired in the western Negev region of southern Israel around 6 this morning (Friday) after the Tzeva Adom incoming missile warning system sounded throughout the area. Initial reports say a residence in the beleagured city of Sderot took a direct hit [source], while another Gazan rocket crashed an exploded in open fields on the edge of Sderot. The home struck this morning has been hit before; the owner is interviewed in Haaretz.
The Islamist Hamas regime that controls Gaza has waged open rocket warfare - directed explicitly at Israeli civilians - for several years. The tally of terrorist rockets (which we track via the Challah Hu Akbar counter on the right of this page) is astonishing to anyone not aware of the frequency of the attacks. So is the apathy of the international organs who look on in silence.
And of course the natural consequence of this is the following from the AP (The Australian News):
Israeli kids return to fortress high school
FOR the first time in years, the children of the Israeli town of Sderot can study in peace.
Living under a constant threat of rocket fire from militants in the nearby Gaza Strip, their schooldays were often interrupted by mad dashes to bomb shelters. But yesterday, they started the school year safe from attack in a new, fortified, rocket-proof school building.
The $US27.5 million ($26.5m) structure features concrete walls, reinforced windows and a unique architectural plan all designed specifically to absorb and deflect rocket fire. Notices on the walls of the "Shaar Hanegev" High School remind the 1200 students of their new reality: in case of a warning siren, it reads, stay put.
Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 August '12..
Three rockets yesterday, including two that did damage to industrial plants. A morning attack today to coincide with children returning to school for the new year. And now, at about 2 this afternoon, another attack from the bottomless stockpile of rockets stored in Gaza's homes, schools, mosques and hospitals.
From the reports we have seen [Hebrew source here, Israel National News English-language report here], neither human injury nor property damage resulted from this afternoon's rockets (there were two of them) which, it is reasonable to assume, were timed to coincide with when most of the Israeli school-children in the vicinity were on the roads heading home from the first school-day of the year.
But that's not the point.
Each rocket attack increases the anxiety and diminishes the confidence of innocent children, and of course their families. There is no other strategic dimension to these attacks. The terrorists of Gaza are not about to cross the border and attempt to seize the city of Sderot and its 24,000+ residents. Nor are they aiming at this strategic target or that army camp. They have neither the ability (with the Qassam weapon platform) nor the desire to do anything more than fling something that might possibly kill, in the general direction of the Israelis, any Israelis, within range.
Credit: Zoom 77: Shikmim School in Sderot that was hit by a kassam rocket on Saturday' 23/06/12
Maayan D'Antonio..
Sderot Media Center..
25 June '12..
Dawn breaks on the city of Sderot; it's a Shabbat, the day of rest. But as they say, there's no rest for the wicked. Some found that it would be fun to play "alarm clock" with the people of Sderot.
It's six o'clock AM when “Tseva Adom” alarm echoes across the city. Getting out of bed is an afterthought for most. Yet the head does not quite stay on the pillow when a sound, as loud as a clap of thunder, rips through the air. It is a clear day: the rockets have landed inside the city's limits (bull's eye).
The ripples of the hit cause car alarms to go off across the city, the window panes to shake in their frames, and people to run to the safe-rooms. That is, unless your skin has grown thick and your brain slow to react to something so common; after all, it is only six AM. So we cover our heads and turn to the other side, hoping to go back to sleep, denying this all the while.
From the Southern city of Sderot, which has been the target of hundreds of missiles, Naftali Bennett calls for the decent people around the world to stand up for Israel. (Please share)
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RACHEL TZADKA IS HAUNTED BY THE DAY, JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO, when her father was killed by a Grad missile fired from Gaza into Ashkelon.
“It was so sudden,” she tells The Jerusalem Report at a clinic for disadvantaged youth in the small town of Sderot where she works several afternoons a week. “We had just seen each other the day before and eaten together. I’m still trying to absorb what happened.”
Tzadka, 26, a social worker wearing a brightly-colored kerchief covering her hair, says that since then, the frequent Kassam rockets that continue to fall on this small town less than a mile from the Gaza border, have become harder to bear. Once the siren sounds warning of an incoming rocket, residents have just 15 seconds to reach a protected area to shield them against the blast.
“Once about two years ago the siren sounded and I couldn’t get my son out of his car seat,” she recalls. “That was the scariest thing I can remember.”
Ideology and patriotism
Yet, she says, she never thinks of leaving Sderot for someplace safer and even recently bought a house here. Tzadka is part of a religious Zionist garin, a group of like-minded people associated with the yeshiva here, who have come to Sderot as an expression of their ideology and patriotism.
“We came here with a Zionist, educational and cultural goal of bringing a new type of spirit and trying to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment,” Rabbi David Fendel, originally from West Hempstead, Long Island, tells The Report. “We came here in 1993 before the Kassam rockets started. And they have certainly been a challenge.”
We walk downstairs and underground into a bomb shelter where the Sderot municipality is housed. The first words from Shalom Halevi, a Sderot native and city representative: “I understand that there are those of you who are frightened. Be cool. Don’t be frightened. We are living like this 11 years.”
Over the past 11 years, thousands of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have targeted Sderot, a city in the western Negev that lies less than a mile from the border. Over 1,800 rockets have hit the city in the last three years alone.
The city’s name, meaning “boulevard,” refers to its placement in a network of avenues of trees planted in the Negev to fight desertification and beautify the arid landscape, evoking Ben Gurion’s efforts to “make the desert bloom,” a central tenant in Zionist ideology. Sderot was founded in 1951 as a transit camp for Mizrahi immigrants fleeing as part of the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries. They lived in the desert, housed in tents and shacks, until the government began constructing small apartments for the residents in 1954. Throughout the following decades, different immigrant groups flowed in from Romania, Ethiopia, Bucharia, and the Ukraine, culminating in the Russian aliyah in the 1990s, during which the city absorbed so many new immigrants that Sderot doubled its population. The diversity of immigrants absorbed means that Sderot is not without its social and economic problems. Sderot is a city of many different immigrant communities, complicating social cohesion, but it is also one that is deeply economically depressed. Despite government efforts to create housing and factories, the city holds one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
In reaction to your recent poem, Israeli Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai has declared you persona non grata in Israel. While I can empathize with the feeling Yishai expressed by his action, he might also have considered it good for your education if you would visit Israel, and specifically the little town of Sderot, where I live and write. I will be delighted to show you around Sderot for some educational sightseeing. It might do you good. You worry about what Israel might do to Iran, but I will show you what Iran has done to Israel through her ally Hamas.
Our first stop will be a pleasant square in the middle of Sderot. A musical statue presides here. Behind the square stands an unusual structure: a huge, curving piece of concrete that stretches over a local school. A thousand years hence, this outlandish architecture will baffle archeologists excavating Sderot. No one will guess what function it might have fulfilled, unless written records of our time survive to explain this mystery. The curvaceous concrete is a huge bomb-shelter whose purpose is to prevent Hamas terrorists from killing the children who study in that school with the rockets they fire from across the border in the Gaza Strip. Iran, the country whose actions you equate to Israel’s, financially and militarily helps those murderers.
Our next stop will be a hole that a kassam rocket made in a Sderot street. Sderot has many holes to choose from. The municipality customarily fills in the central hole the rocket’s nose makes, so that people will be able to drive down that street, but they leave the smaller holes the shrapnel digs in the asphalt. Rockets landing in a public park or an open field generally just disappear after a few months. A home that gets a kassam through its roof is of course repaired. If shrapnel can dig such holes in asphalt, what does it do when it hits the face of a Sderot child?
I will take you, Mr. Grass, to one of the places where Hamas gave your Iranian friends a happy day. One of their rockets killed two Jewish children, immigrants from Ethiopia, who were playing together in a street. I know their family, but I doubt they would want to meet you. Another place we might visit is a courtyard where I spent an evening cleaning up the shards of broken windows that a kassam causes when it lands among buildings. I will show you where a child ran for cover when he heard the alarm, where the rocket detonated, and the shop to which this ten-year-old boy ran to call an ambulance after shrapnel hit him in his shoulder and his chest. He was lucky: he has and will have major problems using that arm. This is in contrast to our next stop, the child-victim struck here will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
It is a rainy day in the small, working-class city of that hit the city almost daily.
"Now the rockets pass over us," says Rachel Levy,the owner of a local sewing shop. "Thank God, life is better."
"But the memories are still there," says Levy, originally from Morocco, who has been running her sewing shop for 25 years.
Levy describes how a Qassam rocket once exploded near her shop six years ago. "I was measuring the hem of a dress for a client at the moment when a rocket exploded out of nowhere. Pieces of shrapnel sprayed into the shop," she recalls. Levy shows me her arm which still bears the signs of the surgery she had to remove the shrapnel that sliced her arm.
"But," Levy says, managing a cheerful smile, "celebrating Hanukkah this year has been a much more joyous occasion." Levy's menorah stands right beside the sewing machine where she works.
Getting back to routine
Sderot mayor, David Buskila, also believes that Sderot residents are in a much better place today than three years ago. "We've been able to get back to a regular routine - a routine that does not involve running to a shelter every 15 seconds and wondering when the next rocket will explode," he said.
"The stress and pressure that comes with living under constant rocket fire has dramatically lessened, at least here in Sderot following Operation Cast Lead in 2009. The economy and housing market has also improved" elaborates Buskila.
Sderot, Israel I arrived in Israel late on Friday afternoon. After a four and a half hour flight from London and a surprisingly quick trip through border control I found myself in Ben Gurion airport, to be greeted by staff from the Sderot Media Center and then to travel South to the town of Sderot. Originally intending to take public transportation I was informed that no such transport would exist, since arriving at this time on the Friday meant the Shabbat had already begun. After being collected at the airport, the drive from Tel Aviv to Sderot was relatively shorter than I had first anticipated. After this journey, and after being pointed out the location of Jerusalem from a hill in Sderot the following day, I soon realised the size of Israel is small even compared to my homeland – Scotland.
By the time we had reached Sderot, it was dark. My arrival in the town was welcomed by a large meal, and consequently the sound of the rocket alarm I had heard much about. Immediately everyone stopped what they were doing, and I was ushered into the apartment’s safe room. Here we stayed for a short time until it was safe, before returning to our meal. Hearing this for the first time was quite a surreal experience I found. Having never encountered anything like this in Britain it became clear how, despite constant security procedures and fears many have of terrorist attacks in Britain, there is no such reality of attacks as there is here in Sderot. And from this first experience, it seemed like this was almost second nature to the residents – A kind of routine, but of course an unwelcome one. For me however, a slightly frightening and alien experience – even after reading much of Sderot’s never ending threat of rocket attacks from Gaza, the high quantity of bomb shelters and the 15 seconds the residents get from the alarm sounding, I could not have anticipated the true reality of it.
Research carried out by a team at Natal, a trauma center for victims of terror and war, under the supervision of Professor Marc Gelkopf, shows one-third of the population of the southern Israeli city of Sderot,which in recent years has been the target of thousands of Qassam rockets launched from Gaza (see, for instance, http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/target-of-terror-sderot-bomb-shelter.html), experience anxiety and other psychological problems due to the attacks.
The study also found that 70 percent of child residents of Sderot are suffering from at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder in consequence of the shelling.
It found that 50 per cent of Sderot's children relive the trauma they've experienced, and 41 per cent are constantly on the alert, ready for danger, and made severely anxious by every little noise.
Twenty percent of Sderot's children suffer from all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and 12 per cent have severe trouble functioning normally. Explains Professor Gelkopf:
"They stop playing, stop being interested in their surroundings, detach themselves from their friends and school. One of our newest and most interesting findings is that there is a connection between the symptoms that the parents experience and the ones their children experience."
Perhaps its time to emulate "peace campaigner" Rod Cox, the man behind the propagandistic exhibition of children's drawings from Gaza that has peregrinated its way around Britain over the past couple of years, working its insidious poison on adults and schoolchildren alike, and bring artwork depicting the sufferings of Israeli boys and girls before the general public.
Would the cathedrals and churches who've lent their halls for Rod Cox's exhibition, and the town council (I know of at least one) who made the most central eye-catching premises at its disposal available to him, accord the same courtesy to a display from Sderot? Alas, I wouldn't bet on it.
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For 10 years, Israelis have lived in a constant state of fear, been injured, and nearly two-dozen killed by crudely built rockets from Gaza.
On April 16, 2001, the first of many thousands of rockets was fired from Gaza at the western Negev communities straddling the Strip’s border. On that early spring day, the residents of Sderot had their first taste of the terror that would come to define life in the previously quiet town for the next 10 years.
The rockets have proved to be a true source of terror for the residents of Sderot and other border-region communities. Several years ago, the first victim of a Kassam attack described to The Jerusalem Post how she lives in a bomb shelter and for months at a time and often times finds herself too scared to take her small children to school. Unfortunately, her story is not unique.
(This video in 4 minutes, really says it all.The first shield playground in the world, located in Sderot, Israel.www.sderotmedia.comYH)
Kassam rockets are named after Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Kassam, who was killed by British Mandate Police in 1935. Born in Syria and transplanted to Haifa, Kassam led terrorist attacks against Jewish residents of Mandate Palestine and British forces until his death. He has since become a lasting symbol for Palestinian terrorists and the namesake of Hamas’s armed terrorist wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades.
Palestinian terrorists began firing Kassam rockets at the western Negev in 2001, but it wasn’t until the 2006 Gaza Disengagement that rockets began falling on Israeli communities in the massive terrorizing barrages of thousands of projectiles a year that we know today. Prior to the Disengagement, Israeli settlements and military bases in Gaza had been much easier targets for terrorist elements in the Strip.
After the disengagement, it became much more difficult for Hamas and the other terrorist groups in the Strip to attack Israelis. With a constantly-patrolled fence and considerably more distance between them and their targets, the Kassam rocket proved to be the perfect weapon.
Kassams rockets are cheap and relatively easy to produce using readily available materials and are small enough to be moved undetected much of the time. Additionally, they have proved to be nearly unstoppable. Even the newly introduced Iron Dome anti-rocket system is helpless against shorter-range Kassam rockets targeting border communities like Sderot.
In a sense, however, the development and adoption of Kassam and other rockets are a testament to the successes of Israeli counter-terrorism activities, but unfortunately also to the limits of its capabilities. The Israeli security services have generally managed to eliminate the more traditional terror attacks emanating from Gaza, but in order to compensate for the operational constraints, Hamas and other groups adopted the Kassam rocket as their primary terrorist tool.
Kassam rockets have undergone extensive development since their introduction in 2001. The first generation of Kassams had a range limited to three kilometers and carried a payload of half a kilogram of explosives. The third generation in use today has a range of 10 km and carries a 10 kg payload. In addition to Kassams, since the Disengagement and Hamas’s ensuing seizure of power in the Strip, the group has added standard Grad-model rockets to the Strip, which have a much longer range and can target more distant cities such as Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba.
Unguided and usually crudely aimed at Israeli civilian populations, the rocket fire clearly constitutes a war crime on the part of the terrorist groups responsible for them. Over 20 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets since 2001, most of whom were civilians.
The rockets have created a constant state of terror for the Israeli communities in the border region. Even with an early warning system, named “The Color Red,” residents have only a few seconds time to reach protected rooms and areas. Without state funding of protected rooms, many residents of the western Negev are left unprotected, adding to the unbearable rocket terror.
It is believed today that Hamas, which has exercised relative restraint considering the assumed size of its arsenal, is capable of targeting Tel Aviv and other civilian population centers deep into Israeli territory. The restraint, however, only emphasizes the threat and effectiveness of the small and cheap projectiles.
This week marks 10 years of rocket fire terrorizing Israeli communities in the western Negev. For 10 years Israelis, young and old have lived in a constant state of fear, suffered from shock and have been injured and nearly two-dozen killed by the crudely built rockets manufactured in Gaza basements and workshops.
Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.
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"There is a “Qassam generation”–kids who over the last eight years have been growing under the rockets, terrorism being the hallmark of their daily life. A Sderot child is aware of the location of every bomb shelter on his way to a local store; some prefer to walk forty minutes to school every morning instead of ten because the circuitous route has better protection; others argue that the safest way is to run all the way."
Terrorism today is not what it was a century ago—or ever. Its patterns changed—from assassinations aimed to punish specific targets to what perpetrators called “motiveless terror” against civilians. Presently, unnoticed by most, they focus on the creation of “fear zones.” They do so by intentionally targeting children.
In a cross-border raid from Lebanon on May 15, 1974 gunmen from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), affiliated with the PLO, took 102 students and their teachers hostage in the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot, which the children from Safed visited during a school trip. Some managed to escape by jumping out the windows, but when the IDF special unit assaulted the building, the terrorists detonated hand grenades and sprayed the 14-16-year olds with machine-gun fire, killing 21 and wounding 66. On June 1, 2001 an Arab suicide bomber blasted himself and yet another 21 Israeli teenagers in the “Delphinarium” disco in Tel Aviv. In 2002 the Chechen terrorists have chosen the Moscow Dubrovka theater as their site during the “Nord-Ost” musical based on the novel The Two Captains by Veniamin Kaverin, a favorite travel adventure story for the young audience.
On September 1, 2004, amid the “Day of Knowledge” festivities, at least 32 heavily-armed, masked terrorists held hostage 1,200 children, their relatives, and their teachers inside School No. 1 in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia, in the former USSR. This terrorist act yielded at least 334 dead, among them 186 children; over 700 were wounded. Violence against children soared to a new level.
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know it is not mannah falling from the skies
the children of Sderot
know it is not the ram’s horn
for its blast is heard in the night
as well as in the morning
and it is not a mitzvah
the children of Sderot
know it is no chariot of fire
sent by the Lord
but fire sharks whose fins slice the air
as if it were water
sleek torpedoes come to sink a house
the children of Sderot
know the world is not listening
does not hear the Tzeva Adom
and couldn’t care less anyway
the children of Sderot
know these are not the Ofanim
singing Holy Holy Holy
nor even the Seraphim
who sing Holy once
before they are consumed in the fury of their joy
the children of Sderot
know the Heavens open to reveal
the crimson rose of Asmodeus
the children of Sderot
know the Slushy machine at Café Pele
is empty of its elixirs
and the ice cream refrigerator is empty of its sweetness
the children of Sderot
know it is not love that moves the sun and the other stars
but a wind that jars the senses and the soul
and joins the heavens to the earth
in darkest consummation
the children of Sderot
know the Talmud is no Iron Dome
the children of Sderot
know that Batman is not the answer to their prayers
and have lost their infant faith
in miraculous interventions
for the caped crusader is nowhere to be found
the children of Sderot
know that flying white balloons
crayoned with peace messages
will not deflect an Incoming
the children of Sderot
know the missives from above
are bang-on with their message
the children of Sderot
know they are alone with all the others
who are also all alone
the children of Sderot
know the world is not with them
the children of Sderot
know
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From 1pm until 4pm on March 28th , THE BOMB SHELTER, an immersive multi-media installation exhibit was open to the public. A periodic siren will sound and participating park goers will have 15 seconds to get from where they are in Washington Square to the shelter - the same length of time that those facing rocket attacks in Israel have to reach safety.
"The artists wanted New Yorkers to viscerally feel what Israelis went through this week during the bombing of a Jerusalem bus stop and repeated rocket strikes," says Craig Dershowitz, President of Artists 4 Israel, the non-profit that created the installation.
As soon as visitors line up to enter the shelter, the deceptively calm Tzeva Adom warning begins to sound. This is the same siren that gives residents of Sderot in southern Israel notice that they have just 15 seconds to find shelter before the rockets launched from Gaza by Hamas begin falling. Then, like in Sderot, visitors will hear the sound of explosions. As they rush into the shelter amidst the blasts, immersive video continues the heart pounding experience as an actual Qassam barrage hitting Sderot unfolds around them - all from the perspective of being in the crowd suffering through the attack.
"The students who have gone on Birthright Israel trips have developed life-long friendships with Israelis and are deeply concerned for them," says Natalie Solomon, Associate Director of the Birthright Israel Alumni Community who is sponsoring the exhibit. "After so many years, it becomes easy for Americans to just read past the headlines. We hope this will help people better understand what it is like to live under terror and renew their passion to see it end."
The bomb shelter exhibit is also a message of hope. It serves as a museum for works of art created by the children of Sderot who have endured more than 10,000 rocket strikes. "You'll see how the kids turned getting to the nearest bomb shelter into a racing game, and hear the song parents made up to help young ones be prepared to move quickly when they hear the siren. The ability of the people to continue to hope in the face of fear and pain is what inspired our artists the most when they visited Sderot last April," says Dershowitz.
Inspired by the resiliency of the children who have suffered through terrorism and how they combat it with art, some of New York's top graffiti artists will cover the outside of the bomb shelter with uplifting images. "It is our way of covering hate with something better," says Solomon.
THE BOMB SHELTER exhibit was open to the public free of charge from 1pm-4pm in Washington Square Park and will next travel to college and university campuses.
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I visited Hevron in November 2000 after the outbreak of the Rosh Hashanah War to see what could be done to assist in the face of the growing daily attacks on the community. After returning to work for the community in the summer of 2001, a bond and a love was forged that grows to this day. My wife Melody and I merited to be married at Ma'arat HaMachpela and now host visitors from throughout the world every Shabbat as well as during the week. Our goal, "Time to come Home!"
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