Voices From Sderot

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 :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19463367

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.