Something changes in Sderot from round to round. There have been 17 rounds since the first missile fell in the area. If at first the residents were proud and asked to stay there during the fighting at almost any price, today it is different. Seventy missiles and traumas Some seek sanity, which can be found elsewhere.
Many who can afford to independently choose to visit family and friends in other parts of the country. Yesterday, the Sderot municipality evacuated 3,000 residents who had been under fire since noon. About one-tenth of the residents are involved, including disabled people, oncology patients, victims of hostilities, and families known to the Welfare Department. Not everyone meets the criteria, and there were already those who complained on social media: "Why are they yes, and I am not?" The Sderot municipality responded that those complainants would not want to be included in this category.
Israelis in bomb shelters, photo: Reuters
"They know it's coming, just not when." Moran Freibach,
Those who remained at home were forced to give up their daily routine and clung to shelters and safe rooms. There were also those who were outside the house and had to run to the safe room. On Route 232, at the Sderot junction near Sapir College, an alarm sounds. We got out of the car and went into the shelter near the station. One of the women turned to us and said anxiously: "I don't know how to get home." We asked where she lived and she replied: "In Ashkelon." We tried to calm her down, directed her, and after ten minutes she continued on her way. To teach you that during an alarm, even normal people can become anxious and lose their sense of direction.
Where is the protected space?
A few minutes away, on one of the trails of Kibbutz Nir Am, we met Kibbutz member Fanny Brodsky in her car. The place looks almost deserted. We asked why she decided to stay and if she wasn't afraid of the missiles. "What do I have to leave?" she replied nonchalantly, "I'm usually in the safe room—I just had to go to the pharmacy. I'm here alone, I don't have children, grandchildren or family here. I didn't travel to work in Ashkelon and I have a lot to do at home."
The scene of a rocket landing in Sderot, photo: AFP
Interceptions over Sderot, photo: Reuters
More than 100 families left the kibbutz yesterday. "I understand them," she says honestly. "How long can you really sit in the safe room with the children and not go out? Filled with one child, but if there are three or four children? I think it's the right thing. I am in principle in favor of evacuation. Here, I just received a message that they were bombing Gaza. I'm terribly sorry about the situation, but I'm not afraid. It's actually good for me. I have my music, my TV, my bed and the safe room."
But not everyone gets the privilege of protected space. In the kibbutzim and localities of the Eshkol Regional Council, every fifth house has no protected space. Residents are forced to stand under the lintels or simply lie down on the floor. Most of the 11 injured brought to Barzilai Medical Center, eight injured, were injured as a result of running to the safe room during an alarm. The other three were suffering from shock.
Modern Zionism
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the only significant damage so far in Operation Shield and Arrow, which will remain so, was caused to the roof of a house in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Sderot. The house was empty of people, thus avoiding disaster. When we got there, the neighbor went out to inspect the damage. "We are glad that the IDF and the government have taken the initiative and are harming the terrorist organizations," he says, "The time has come for us to restore deterrence."
"Not afraid." Fanny Brodexi, photo: uncredited
But until then, there are those who, even without it, stay and fight for every piece of land out of love for the land. So did Moran Freibach, a member of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, who was among those who remained on the kibbutz. "In the morning it was tense quiet," he says. "We know it will come, but we don't know when it will come. You can't work in the fields and that makes it very difficult. Unfortunately, this will cause us damage. In any case, we are in excellent contact with the army, it surrounds us and informs us of what is happening. We have excellent communication with them."
Freibach hopes that this operation will bring some calm, but he is not very optimistic. "We may have damaged the capabilities of one organization, but on the other hand there is another, and this is not a solution – everyone understands that." Still, he is proud that the area itself is growing and flourishing despite the tensions. "We are doing here no more and no less than modern Zionism. We have meaning to life here. We draw the borders of the state and determine them in practice down to the last meter," he concludes.
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