We are now into the wee morning hours in Israel and day two
of Operation Pillar of Defense, and I can’t help but think about the
significance of the name by which the current military actions are known. It
brings images to mind of the children of Israel as they were fleeing Egypt and how
Yahweh stood between them and the pursuing Egyptian armies as a pillar of fire.
Yahweh protected them, He shielded them,
but He also used the pillar of fire to lead them. It guided them when they were
to move forward and instructed them when to halt. May Yahweh continue to fill
the armies of Israel with courage, strength, and wisdom beyond their years.
The IDF continues to target launching sites as they attempt
to impair the rocket launching capabilities of terror organizations in the Gaza
Strip and hamper their weapon build up capability. The past 24 hours has seen
over 300 rockets fall throughout Israel. Three Israeli were killed by a direct
hit on their home in Kiryat Malakhi.
For the first time since the Gulf War in the
1990’s, sirens were heard in Tel Aviv today. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad took
responsibility for the three rockets fired on Tel Aviv. Three Fajr-5 rockets
landed just 15 km south of Tel Aviv. The IDF confirms that all Palestinian
terror groups are participating in the rocket fire with Hamas trying to take
the lead.
The following is posted here with permission from the
author. I thought my readers might find the first hand experiences of those
living in the midst of all this interesting. Real people sharing their unique take on what
is happening there. These are the “Voices of Sderot “.
The following was written prior to the start of Operation
Pillar of Defense and it is MC’s observations of the effects of tens of
thousands of rockets falling on the community of Sderot for the past decade.
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This article arose from an email to Her Ladyship concerning
the BBC reporting of an event in Gaza and the implication that the Israeli arms
blockade was causing starvation in the strip :-
Her ladyship pointed out that my asides were a story in themselves and invited me to indulge in some beeb bashing:
I live in Sderot a small city in Israel about 3 miles from
Gaza, there, my wife and I are volunteers at a charity that supplies
supplemental food to poor and unemployed families in the city and surrounding
area.
We hand out the food in supermarket bags which have to be
packed the day before. Somehow it is
usually when doing these sessions that one hears “Sever Adom” on the
loudspeaker system that covers the whole city.
The internal alarm also triggers, and the blood pressure peaks. At this point we officially have 15 seconds
to get under cover, often however, it is more like 4 seconds.
S rushes to the lavatory at this point and locks herself in,
I her husband, goes outside to see if there is anything to see. The rest of us stay out and wait for the
bang. There is not enough time to get
to a shelter (all the bus stops are bomb shelters) and being caught out in the
open is not healthy.
Y knows this, he is permanently crippled from the one that
exploded about a yard away from him, there was a brick wall in between and he
still carries some of it around with him, too deeply embedded to be removed
safely.
Sderot was built in the 50’s when Jews had to flee from
North Africa in the aftermath of the 1948 war.
It started as a tent city on the periphery of the Negev desert, later,
rows of prefab housing were erected, they can still be seen.
S. the lady of the loo, was from North Africa, as a 3 year
old she was doused in petrol and set alight.
She survived, but grew up carrying the scars.
Bible scholars will remember that the Amalekites attacked
the tail end of the Israelite column as they were leaving Egypt. In this
rear part were the families, the old and the infirm. These are the soft targets, and there is
little risk but great terror potential in attacking babies. Several hundred years later King Saul was
commanded to wipe out the Amalekites, lock, stock etc. But the barrels proved too tempting and he
failed so the problem of Amalekite hatred of the children of Israel continues
to this day.
As the first missiles fell on Sderot some dozen or so years
ago, those who could afford it moved out, along with the factories that
provided the jobs. Notable exceptions
being Nestle’s, Amdocs and the Israeli food company Osem. With the resulting unemployment came poverty
and exploitation.
E one of the volunteers is a Sabra, a native born Israeli,
she speaks Hebrew, English and French and works for a cleaning company at
minimum wage. They require her to work
20 hours a week, but only pay her for 12.
If she works more than 12 hours she loses her welfare payment, but jobs
are so scarce that that E has to do the 20 hours.
G is in debt to the bank, his unemployment cheque is also
paid into the bank (he has no say in this), he sees very little of this money,
we feed him and his children.
K was badly crippled by a qassam missile, he cannot now do any physical work,
his wife left him soon after the injury happened taking his two daughters with
her. The state pays most of his benefit
as child support, K is left to live on a pittance. He needed an operation a few weeks ago, to
remove shrapnel , the hospital would not operate until someone put up a bond in
case the insurance would not pay (it was a war injury). We were able to find the money for that.
The rain of missiles is from our peace loving ‘cousins’ in
Gaza, each warhead is lovingly filled with nails and rat poison (promotes
bleeding) and are cynically aimed at our
children when they are going to school or coming back.
Gaza has some of the finest beaches in the Mediterranean an
area famous for its beaches. It could
be a major tourist destination, but no, the spirit of the Amalekite is with us,
killing and maiming Jews is more important.
The BBC article in question uses a seventies lefty trick that I recognise from
my student union days,
“Some 80% of families in the Palestinian territory are said to receive
some sort of food aid from UN agencies and other international organizations.
Although there have been some previous incidents of Gazans setting fire to
themselves because of hardship, this is thought to be the first fatality.
The UN has been highly critical of the blockade on Gaza which Israel and
Egypt tightened when Islamist group Hamas seized power in 2007, the BBC's Jon
Donnison reports.”
You will note the non sequitur insertion of the UN
sentence, this is designed to link in our minds the otherwise unconnected ideas
of hunger, unemployment and blockade.
The BBC is telling us a lie whilst telling us the truth.
I would disagree with the beeb, Hamas and Islamic
Fundamentalism are the prime cause of the dire problems in Gaza, and also it’s
painful consequences for the innocent people of Sderot who just want to get on
with life. But the BBC obviously do
not care for truth, they are, after all, a propaganda organisation, paid for by
the people of the UK, but representing whom, we don’t
know, maybe those that would want to rule for a thousand years.
Jerusalem Time
