Sixteen-year-old Liz Sheetrit and her family stand in their homes with shell-shocked expressions as they point to their burnt front yard and shattered kitchen window. "I can't believe this happened to us," Liz exclaims. A Grad rocket fired from Gaza struck the family's street this past Saturday night, damaging four homes in their neighborhood, leaving a splattering of shrapnel holes, shattered glass, and pieces of metal stuck in the housing exterior.
Liz says she feels only slightly lucky. She and her family were thankfully not home at the time of the explosion but her dog, which was home at the time of the explosion, harbored some marks from the attack.
The Sheetrit family and the other neighborhood families are lucky for another reason too. They live in relatively new homes, all of which have bomb shelters. "Our neighbors entered their shelter as soon as the alarm went off. If they had been anywhere near the kitchen or living room, someone could have been seriously injured," Liz's father said.
More than 50 percent of Ashkelon's residents live in older buildings that were built without shelters, according to a municipal spokesperson, Yossi Assoulin.
"But thanks to the Iron Dome, residents here, even during Grad rocket attacks from Gaza, haven't lost their sense of security," explains Assoulin.
The Iron Dome is a mobile air defensive system that was developed in Israel to intercept incoming Palestinian rockets through a special radar detecting system. Although the system has been criticized for its steep operating costs, it has become an important tool in defending Israeli civilians by successfully shooting down countless rockets. Israel plans to invest $1 billion in the Iron Dome missile defense system in coming years, of which the U.S. Congress has approved to provide $205 million.
However, the defense system offers no guarantees.
On the same day that the Sheetrit family's home was struck by rocket shrapnel, an Ashkelon man, Moshe Ami, a father of four, was killed in a rocket attack on his way home. The air raid siren, which gives Ashkelon residents about 25 seconds to find cover, went off as Ami was driving home in the heart of the city along Rabin Road. Unable to make it to the shelter in time, a piece of shrapnel from the rocket explosion mortally struck Ami and he later died of his wounds in Ashkelon's Barzilai Medical Center.
In addition to Ashkelon, a city of over 120,000, the barrage of Grad missiles also struck Be'er Sheva, Ofakim, and Ashdod, considered major metropolitan areas of Israel's south. The rockets hit an Ashdod school and caused extensive damage to countless buildings and homes in residential neighborhoods across the region. Twenty Israelis were hospitalized for shock and injury including a baby.
A total of 35 projectiles including Iranian-made Grads and mortar shells struck Israel this past Saturday.
Elad, an Ashkelon taxi driver, who was born and raised in the city, said that Saturday night was a nightmarish experience. "Working as a taxi driver during these kinds of terror attacks is the worst experience. While everyone else stays at home and in their shelters, we have to go out to make our living."
"There's no way we can make peace now," the Israeli taxi driver continued. "There is no one to make peace with. How many more rocket attacks are needed to prove that?"
Ashkelon's mayor Benny Vaknin said on Sunday that the type of missiles fired on Saturday caused much greater destruction than past rockets. "These types of rockets are much more accurate and capable of great devastation, damaging concrete building and roads. Within six months, we have experienced three rounds of destructive rocket attacks, in late April, August and now, October. We need to rethink how to address this situation."
Vaknin refused to allow Ashkelon students to attend schools on Monday, for the second day in a row. On Sunday, over 200,000 students in Be'er Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Kiryat Malachi, Sderot and other communities closed down schools because of continued rocket threats. Although, Israel's Home Front Command declared that safety precautions had been lifted on Monday, and that students could once again attend school, Vaknin did not want to take any chances.
Most of Ashkelon's schools are not protected against rocket attacks. The city has close to 30,000 students in its education system including 6,000 college students at Ashkelon's Academic College.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for most of the rocket attacks during the weekend. According to an analysis by Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Tomeh, the Islamic Jihad organization has become a major player in Gaza thanks to the financial and military help of Iran and Syria. Hamas has taken second role during the current fighting, allowing Egypt instead to mediate a cease-fire between Islamic Jihad and Israel. "Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday that Hamas is probably afraid of violent confrontation with Islamic Jihad, whose members have managed to smuggle into the Gaza Strip new weapons stolen from Libya," wrote Abu Tomeh.
Islamic Jihad's leader in Syria, Ramadan Abdullah recently attended Iran's Fifth International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada earlier in October, where he stated that jihad and resistance are the only "options" for the Palestinians. Islamic Jihad has called for the destruction of Israel on numerous occasions.
Israel Defense Forces were able to identify and strike an Islamic Jihad rocket cell in Gaza earlier on Saturday, killing five terrorists, including a senior commander responsible for rocket production facilities. Israel's Channel 10 reported late Saturday night that Islamic Jihad's Quds Brigades said the first wave of rockets was its "initial response" to the strike on its rocket cell, and that "the enemy should expect the worst in the coming hours."
Meanwhile, Liz Sheetrit hopes that life will return to normal for her family and neighbors. "We are trying to get back to a routine, but no one can guarantee that rockets won't strike here once again."
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You can't expect to live in tranquil peace after having STOLEN peoples' homes from them creating millions of REFUGEES so that you can have FREE LAND.
That young lady in the picture holding her little doggie doesn't look anything like the abused Palestinian refugees look like. She looks quite well off compared to their VICTIMS who are occasionally massacred, have their homes bulldozed, live in a blockaded / tiny area, and suffer from unrestricted attacks from the "settlers".
Israel must come to terms with their injustice and abuse of their victims if they ever want to enjoy their "peaceful Jewish Homeland", which they stole.
"In the Middle East, peace is made with the strong, not with the weak. The stronger Israel is, the closer peace will be. The people in Israel are united in their desire for peace. Yet we seek real peace; peace that is anchored in the right of the Jewish people to a nation-state in its homeland; peace that is based on security. We are willing to compromise, but not to discard our security."
"Regrettably, the Palestinians continue to refuse to engage in direct negotiations with us. Instead of sitting at the negotiation table, they decided to join the Hamas and take unilateral steps at the United Nations. We will not idly sit by while these steps harm Israel and severely violate the most basic obligation that the two parties took upon themselves in the peace process - to resolve the conflict between us only through direct negotiations."
That is what works in America and keeps the many different people in America from attacking each other, they should try that there.
For instance, in America Jews and Arabs live side by side, but live in peace.
Is that because the American Jews have more bullets? No, it is because BOTH are treated fairly with the EQUAL laws of justice. ONLY that can stand the test of time.
Netanyahu is playing to the simplistic / tawdry mindset instead of being a real leader. The sooner an Israeli LEADER stands up and leads them to a true peace based upon justice not bullets the sooner they will finally, for once, enjoy it.
http://www.economist.com/node/15913000
Every person of morality and conscience should condemn these rocket attacks in no uncertain terms and not try to defend them as "harmless."
Lee Broad
Author, The Masada Protocol
www.leebroad.com
Fanned and Fav'ed
How would YOU treat anyone who did this to you and your loved ones? Like a friend? Or like an enemy?
That's a pretty sure sign that, if not actually written by the Israeli military's propaganda department, the article was written to their guidelines.
utter factual fail on your part...again.
And how do you do that without killing alot of people who had nothing to do with it?
Your critics is appropriate but not constructive as it doesn't show the way out or place the responsibility on either party.
There can be no stronger long term peace than that which is built upon justice for all.
If you doubt that take a look at the United States of America as an example of different people living together in peace.