While Sderot was evacuated in an orderly manner, in Ashkelon, a city of more than 150,<> residents, it was only a recommendation: whoever could, should find a safer place. This is despite the fact that the community continues to be at the center of the fighting, a main target of Hamas for rocket fire and terrorist infiltration attempts.
Direct hit on a building in Ashkelon // Shmuel Buchris
"My wife and I are teachers at the school," said Yoel Lahyani, an eighth-grade educator in the city. "We have a benefit from the teachers' union – the possibility of leaving here as a couple with two children. Except there are five of us in the family. How can I afford to take a hotel for an unknown time? The kids are stressed, I'm nervous. We really want to get out."
The apprehension could be clearly seen on Lahyani's face. A few minutes earlier, a soldier in civilian clothes, armed with a rifle, came to cut his hair in the shopping center. Lahyani admitted that the sight, which until less than two weeks ago seemed routine, paralyzed him with fear. Today it is not missiles that frighten him, but the news that never stops trickling about attempts by terrorists to infiltrate the nearby area.
Appreciate the damage. Property tax workers in the city, photo: Liron Moldovan
"Last week, residents of the Agamim neighborhood told us to stay indoors," he says. "Helicopters in the air, flare bombs. It is impossible to remain indifferent to this. Terrorists hid for days in bushes and suddenly came out. It's scary. Our neighborhood is protected, but you will pass through it today and it is dark. Crowds left."
"I was sitting on the balcony at two o'clock in the morning and across the street was a neighbor with his wife shouting 'Allahu Akbar' just for the sake of laughter. Do you know what I went through at that moment? The situation is stressful. Today they asked me to give an online lesson to the classmates and I couldn't. I can't provide an emotional response to the students when I'm in that situation."
Open despite the apprehension. "Silk Pine" Bakery, Photo: Liron Moldovan
"Afraid of leaving the city"
Anxiety can be seen everywhere. The branch of the "Oren Meshi" bakery, at 17 Ayala Street, opened yesterday for the first time after several days of being closed. Those who stayed in the city wanted to stock up on food, and packages of pita bread kept flying off the shelves on their way to the freezer.
"We were quite afraid to open, because the shelter next door is small and barely 20 people enter," said Ofra Ohayon, who has worked at the bakery's chain for 18 years. "But customers asked us to open and the truth is that we lacked togetherness too. Here it's like a family. I won't move from here. I'm more afraid of leaving the city than staying there."
The vehicles were destroyed, the building was damaged. Damage to Ashkelon, photo: Liron Moldovan
Rachel Ben-Aziz, who works at the cash register next door, looked much more frightened than her friend. She lives in a nearby building that doesn't have a safe room, and at every alarm – and there have been many since the war broke out – she fled with her husband to the stairwell.
"A missile fell behind our building and it sounded like it hit us," she says. "The scream I was screaming out of fear, the whole building heard. My sister in Eilat is begging me to come, and I just hope God will be with us."
For morale. Hanging flags throughout Ashkelon, photo: Liron Moldovan
Kona, listening to the conversation, quickly intervened. "It's easy to say, 'Get up and leave,' but it's hard to do. I want to see you start picking up the kids and looking for a new place to sleep. I have an offer from work to vacate for free and I'm giving up because of my children, who are parents themselves. What did you think, that I would leave them and their grandchildren and flee to another city? If we die, we will all die together."
Smoke rises from a rocket landing in the background of Ashkelon, Photo: AP
Bakery worker Michael Makhlouf Suissa, 23, asked everyone to gather around him so he could greet the IDF soldiers, many of whom have passed through the city streets in recent days. "I was a fighter in Givati and about a year ago I was discharged," he said.
"Now I gave a personal number, personal details, and I wasn't called up for reserve duty. I would be very happy to come back and fight for the country. I got married four months ago and my wife doesn't want me to enlist, she is dying for us to flee to Eilat, but I told her that if she finds a place, we'll go there, but if I get a reserve order I'll cut in the middle. That's what I enlisted for."
Fall in Ashkelon. No casualties, photo: Kabah Darom
Ashkelon is already practicing in difficult days of fighting. Raphael Zanzuri, who has been telling the story of the city's residents for 40 years, recalls that in Operation Cast Lead, which began at the end of 2008 when there were still no means of protection like today, there was tremendous fear of harm and residents flocked out, but he also admitted that this time the range of threats is much more frightening.
"Potential for destruction"
"My daughter had to get married on October 24 and we had to postpone everything," he says. "Now they are trying to see if we will be able to hold the wedding at least within the nuclear family, but as it stands, the situation will only get worse. I see people hoarding water, food, preparing for long days of fighting. It looks like it's getting out of control."
A bomb shelter in Ashkelon, under rocket barrages, photo: AP
Zanzuri opened the barbershop only because customers called and asked to break the burdensome safe room routine. He said he was quietly ready to stay home. "It seems to me that Hamas has exhausted Sderot and is moving to deal with Ashkelon," he provided bitter humor. "Sderot is empty and here there is potential for destruction."
The sky was turning dark, rain clouds appeared over the southern city. It seemed to me that we would not be able to draw encouragement from the frightened residents, but then we met Jenny Ezra and her daughter Shahar, residents of Sderot, who, on Friday, when they announced that the city was about to be evacuated, chose to come to their daughter and older sister, who lives in Ashkelon with her partner. It didn't frighten them that just now a house had been hit by one of the rockets fired at the city.
House hit by a missile in AshkelonArchive photo: Avishag Shar Yashuv,
Yesterday, they were walking down the street with one of their six dogs. "On the Saturday when terrorists came to Sderot, I went down with the dogs for a walk and thought the noise was coming from airplanes," Jenny said. "An armed neighbor just kicked me out and said they were terrorists. I think we'll be in Ashkelon for a few days, see what happens and then decide. I? I would go home. It's the same here and there."
Aren't you afraid of missiles, terrorists, a ground operation?
"We came from Romania in the '70s and part of my resilience is that events like this throw me into the stories my grandmother told about the pogroms. We are a people that survives everything. So as you can see, my daughters stay too, because I raised female fighters. Only here should we be, and those who once lived in the Diaspora understand this very well. We have no other country."
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