Wartime in Israel: What it looks like from Sderot
These have been interesting days. For the last week, I’ve wanted to write my experiences and share them with all of you. To be honest, it’s been hard to concentrate. I’ve been busy — I’ve been trying to capture as much as possible with my video camera. I used to have a crew, but my two usual shooters are afraid to come to Sderot right now. So I’m on my own, except for my husband, who has become my assistant cameraperson because he won’t let me out of his sight. We’ve made a pact to try to stay together as much as possible so we don’t worry about each other.
I want to describe what it looks like – and sounds like –- from here.
Every morning, we are awakened by the Tzeva Adom alert. This is one of the most bizarre air raids in history. It starts with the click of a loudspeaker, and then a calm woman’s voice says “Tzeva Adom (Color Red), Tzeva Adom (Color Red)” over and over again. The alert has been difficult to hear at times, especially if you were playing music or watching TV. Last week, two soldiers from the Home Command Unit appeared at our door and handed us a home beeper system that goes off two seconds before the Tzeva Adom alert. So now the loud beeper sound is added to the repertoire.
The moment of the alert, my husband Avi and I jump out of bed and run to our Mamad – our bomb shelter. We huddle there and hug each other waiting to hear the explosion. Sometimes it’s a distant thud. Sometimes it is terrifyingly close, and our house shakes. After about twenty seconds, it’s over. They say that you have a fifteen second warning. Actually, it varies. And once in a while, you will hear a Qassam land without a Tzeva Adom alert. Those are the worst times, because that means there is a very decent chance that someone has been hurt.
Here in Sderot, we are accustomed to Tzeva Adom alerts on a weekly and even daily basis. But last week, the situation reached a new level. On Wednesday, December 24, we received over 60 rockets. The following Saturday, we heard a new sound – airstrikes. It was a strange moment. Finally, after eight years, Israel was taking action. Since then, the Qassam attacks have been endless. In the old days, we knew there could be a Tzeva Adom alert. Now we know there will be.
This week, there have been approximately 10 Tzeva Adom alerts in Sderot every day (some days more, some days less.) Keep in mind – each Tzeva Adom is accompanied by two to four exploding rockets.
So this is how we live. We stay alert at all times. If Avi takes a shower, I need to be nearby listening for the alert, ready to grab him out of the shower if need be (and vice versa). If we drive somewhere, we tune our radio to channel 104, the army channel. All Tzeva Adom alerts are broadcast on that station, so you can immediately get out of your car and run for cover. We also drive with seat belts off, and windows open, just in case. (Several of the people who have died from Qassams were in their cars when the attack occurred.)
Where do we run? Well, Sderot is pretty well prepared. There are bomb shelters of every shape and size everywhere you look – almost every ten meters you have one. The idea is that you are always within fifteen seconds of a shelter. However, this concept is flawed in its execution. Some areas are covered with shelters. But some residential streets have none. If you are on a residential street in the middle of a Tzeva Adom alert, you run into the nearest house. This is what happened today. As we heard the alert, we saw a flash of two people in front of our house. We ran, opened the door, and the two young guys followed us, running into our bomb shelter. We waited to hear the explosions, they thanked us and were on their way.
Another issue - not all homes have bomb shelters. In fact, several of my friends don’t have one, and fifteen seconds are not long enough for them to reach the public shelter. They usually crouch under a stairwell hoping everything will be okay.
But ironically, Sderot is probably the safest place in Southern Israel at the moment. Because now the entire South is being hit: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, and Netivot, among others… We have friends in these cities, and when the bombs started to fall there, they were in shock for days. They are less prepared than us. There are not bomb shelters lining the streets of these towns, but fewer, larger community shelters where now many people are sleeping. While we definitely feel a sense of solidarity, the fact that large part of the country is living much like us – running for shelter and fearing for their lives – creates a whole new sad reality.
When I first came to Sderot I didn’t run to the shelter. The threat seemed so random. It seemed almost impossible that you were going to be hurt. The fear of Qassams is something that takes a while. It grows on you. Because now, I know too many people with near misses. I have a friend who reluctantly left his bed to go the shelter. He was lucky he decided to go, because the Qassam landed directly on his bed, where he had been sleeping a few seconds earlier. I have another friend who miraculously survived a Qassam hit on her house. She is okay after massive rehab, but she has shrapnel in her brain that is too deep to remove. And I have friends who have seen people killed by Qassams – right before their eyes.
I often feel that the international press doesn’t get it. They make light of the rockets. Because when you come to Sderot for one day, the attacks seem random and you feel somehow immune from harm. The words “amateur homemade rockets” that I see written in most major news publications, make the threat seem less serious. But the fact is, these rockets are nothing other than bombs, falling from the sky, designed to kill civilians. And they do.
The press usually focuses on the number of dead people. If these Qassams are really dangerous, why haven’t more people died? Good question. Thousands of lives have been saved by the 15-second warning system. With over 10,000 rockets that have landed in this area in the past eight years, there would most likely be hundreds killed if not thousands. But the fact that we know when the rockets are coming, saves our lives. Still, is this any way to live? Can you imagine this happening in any city in America or Europe?
On Sunday, I filmed a home that had been completely destroyed that morning. It was a small, three-room place. No bomb shelter, but miraculously, the room where the owner took cover wasn’t hit. The rest of the house was demolished. I’ve seen tons of footage of destroyed homes in Sderot, and filmed in broken houses. But I had never set foot on fresh rubble just a few hours old. I was shaken. That house was struck by a Qassam, which is approximately 6-8 kilos of explosives attached to a metal tube with fins. Last night we were informed of new intelligence that Hamas intends to begin shooting Grads into Sderot. Grads are twice the size of Qassams and are what Hamas uses to bomb the further cities like Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Be’er Sheva. Now you know why my cameraman has headed out of town.
Besides the Qassams, there are other developments. Being about one mile away from Gaza, we can hear everything. The insanely loud sound of bombs being dropped from airplanes, F-16s, helicopters, helicopter guns, mortars, tank shells… these sounds have now become the soundtrack of our lives.
When I first came here over a year and a half ago, Sderot was almost like a ghost town. Now the international media has descended on us in droves. There are TV trucks and cameramen everywhere you look, and reporters from every network, broadcasting in every language from the hilltops and town corners. At least my friends who own Coffee To Go, the local café, are finally getting some business. (When I first arrived here and hadn’t yet found a house, Avi used to joke that I was single-handedly keeping the place afloat.)
For me it’s interesting. Sderot is a small place, and after a while, you recognize most people you see in the supermarket, café or falafel stand. For months I must have seemed to Sderot’s citizens like “that strange American girl wandering around with a camera.” Now after a year here, I feel like a local. With the town full of foreigners, I really feel like this is my town. That I am one of the people that they are here to film, running to the bomb shelter during a Tzeva Adom alert.
All around, you just feel war. People stay in their houses, schools are closed. “Learning Together,” a wartime television program broadcasts daily high school classes for kids who can’t go to school. The classes are taught by famous Israeli writers, poets, and philosophers.
The war is the only thing people talk about. It’s hard to get things done. It’s hard to keep ourselves from watching the news all day. And the weirdest thing is to watch the news about something that just happened a block away. When you realize that you are the news. Two nights ago we sat in Coffee To Go for dinner. Suddenly, Tzeva Adom. We ran to the interior of the room, away from the glass storefront. The Qassam exploded just across the street — the café rocked with the blast. Journalists who had been on a coffee break raced out to try and get their shots. Five minutes later, a large-screen TV above our heads was broadcasting the update from Sderot – including what we had just felt and heard.
This morning Avi looked at me and said, “It’s impossible to relax, to have fun, to enjoy life. The war just makes life stop. We aren’t living right now. We are only surviving.” I know he’s right. I’m trying to think of it as an experience that we are going through that will make us stronger. That everything is going to be okay.
Its very sad and depressing for us to hear the loud explosions in Gaza and to know that there is no way for innocent civilians not to be killed in this war. But most of us also feel that finally the government is doing what it needs to do to defend us. I get emails from people and read articles calling Israel’s response “disproportionate.” It upsets me. I feel they just don’t have a clue. What would be a proportionate response? For us to shoot unmanned missiles targeted at civilians every day? Instead, we are doing something more effective and humane – we are taking away their weapons. We are bombing their stockpiles, tunnels, and terror infrastructure. We are sending SMSs and leaflets warning civilians to leave areas that will be bombed. And we are doing what we need to do to stay alive. From this corner of the State of Israel, it is obvious that if we don’t do something now, we are looking at an existential threat. If anyone has any doubts about that, then I invite them to come live with me here in Sderot. I have an extra bed and am happy to offer it. I guarantee they will change their mind once they’ve spent a few days in my living room.
Last week, before the war started, I did an interview with Yossi Cohen, an established Sderot musician who plays bass in Avi’s band and has a band of his own. He’s had his own share of trauma – he now suffers a hearing loss from a Qassam that landed right near him, and has anxiety and depression as a result of another close landing that killed someone. He also happens to be one of the nicest people I know. Yossi works for the city (his day job) doing landscaping projects. He took me to his most recent work of art. It was a bomb shelter — one I had passed a million times. But now it had been painted a nice shade of brown, and was covered with panels of green vines. Design-wise, it looked like something you would see in Palm Springs. It seemed so surreal to create designer bomb shelters. Yossi explained that someone thought it would be a good idea to boost morale. These kind of absurdities run amok in Sderot.
A few meters away, was a smaller bomb shelter with graffiti spray painted on it. I asked Yossi what it said (my Hebrew still not up to par). It says “Secede from the pathetic state.” Yossi added, “I know the person who wrote it.”
This sort of sentiment wasn’t unusual in Sderot. When I first arrived, I was told by many residents that this was a city without a state. And last year friends told me they were not planning to put up a flag on Yom Haatzmaoot (Israel’s Independence Day.) Sderot had such a terrible year. It was hard to feel patriotic.
But last week everything changed. We watched speeches by Barak and Livni about how after eight years, something had to be done and they were going to do it. Avi felt they were finally apologizing to the people of this area for ignoring their suffering for so long. No one is happy that there is a war, that we are bombing Gaza, and that innocent people will suffer as a result. But the people here feel that finally the government is addressing what has been an unbearable situation. Yesterday, Yossi’s job included hanging up Israeli flags all over the city, and he was interviewed on Channel Two saying, “I’m finally proud to be part of the country and to put up the flag.”
When I went out of the house this morning, there they were. Hundreds of blue and white flags, shiny and new, on every lamppost and lining every street. It was a beautiful sunny day, and as I turned down one particular street – the street where Avi proposed to me — I saw hundreds of blue Stars of David staring back at me.
It’s hard to live here and not wonder, “Will we survive? As a country? As a people?” I have been thinking this on a daily basis, and last night went to bed in tears after a stressful argument with a friend on this very topic. But somehow seeing that row of flags made me feel better. Maybe we won’t make it. But we’ve got to do everything we can to try. Here in Sderot, we are part of a country again. And as a people, a nation, we have history on our side. The flags and those two thoughts are going to get me through this war.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Hi there. Thank you for this blog. I wish I had the means to draw traffic to it. I posted something similar on my blog
http://humanhaters.blogspot.com/2008/11/letter-from-sderot.html. The young lady’s US grandparents who received the letter evidently gave permission to anyone on the blogosphere to publish it, because they wanted it seen.
Because Israel are going after Hamas, the topic of the Qassams landing in Southern Israel is finally on the news. But the news are, predictably, focusing on Israel’s “disproportionate” force.
But those of us who have known about the little town of Sderot long before it was made (a little) known by Israel decision to finally strike back, want to share your pain and concern. Who knows, maybe Sderot will be the only place able to tell us if this war is won.
Welcome back to Israel, Sderot!
I can’t wait to see your film. Love, prayers and best wishes from Down Under. May G-d keep you safe.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I would like to feature your blog with today’s articles on my page. If this would be ok please advise. I was very moved by this article. It needs to be read during this time.
Sincerely, Duliece Melton
January 8th, 2009 at 2:24 am
[...] Wartime in Israel: What it looks like from Sderot [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Thanks for the indepth description of life in Sderot. I also added your entry to my blog to send back to the States. I feel that American news has been biased and it’s good to see this perspective.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Thank you so much for writing this blog, I have posted the link to it on Facebook, I hope that’s ok. I live in Jerusalem and have watched as so many of us try to put across Israel’s “side” by using facts and figures, but these don’t work when you are faced with people’s emotional responses to war and killing. Your story, the human faces behind the facts, is what makes this more than just a piece of news. I am thinking of you all.
Tania
January 8th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Your account of daily life under rocket fire sounds terrifying. I applaud your brave accounting of it, and wish you safety. I’m curious to know if you agree that, in addition to the terrible conditions in Sderot, the near constant shelling and bombing in Gaza is something that the international media should be concerned about reporting in a proportional manner? The word proportional has come up a lot, applied to the actions taking place on the ground by Israel - but I’m speaking of the news coverage in this instance. I’m not sure I understand your complaint about the international media ‘not getting it.’ The media is attempting to report, with whatever accuracy they can claim, that W amount of bombs have fallen in Israel resulting in X number of deaths, and that Y amount of bombs have fallen in Gaza resulting in Z number of deaths. The fact Y and Z have thus far been much larger than W and X is not a result of any bias, we can agree. And given that Y and Z are much larger variables, we would have to expect that the available media coverage of them would be greater - more photos, more videos, more witnesses, etc. The international media is not claiming that an Israeli life is more valuable than a Palestinian’s life, nor that a Palestinian’s life is more valuable than an Israeli’s. The media is reporting on the events happening in the region and elsewhere around the world, as people not affiliated with the media react and make themselves available to the media-gatherers. It’s the cumulative size of the events each population is experiencing that is simply not equal - not the terror and fear that the individual on either side experiences. I’m not looking to discredit your post or position, I’m just curious as to what specific steps you would have the international media take to cover this event in a way that you and many others in Israel and elsewhere would approve of. Sincerely, Andrew
January 8th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Thank you, very interesting. No one can really understand what it feels like unless they’ve lived in constant fear of random death for a while.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Please know that all over the world Christians, alongside their Jewish brothers and sisters, are praying for Israel and the safety of her people.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Our prayers are with you. I also agree that the media coverage is disproportionately biased against Isrrael. Thousands of rockets & mortars have fallen in southern Israel since 2000. All targeting civilian areas. Israel showed incrdible restraint throught the years of it’s citizens being terrorized. Finally, the Israelis respond to Palestinian agression and the world is aghast at Israel’s reaction!!!?? Any other nation on the planet would have flattened a terrorist regime on its border lobbing rockets, missles, & mortars at its citizens. When Israel responds the world community condemns her! I live in Boston, MA and read daily newspapers & watch tv news and have seen nothing being reported on how Palestinian rocketfire is a constant in the lives of Israelis. Therefore, when the Israelis finally respond to the terror it looks as though they are simply making an incursion into Gaza killing indiscriminately, when that is the furthest thing from the truth. They make every attempt to let the “innocent” civilians who may be allowing rockets to be fired from their roooftops to get away from the area or at least get away from any known Hamas terrorists, lest they get caught in the fire. Hamas gives no warnings when they are about to fire yet another missile into southern Israel. Does the world community believe that if the Palestinians would stop calling for Israel’s destruction, stop all forms of terror(rockets,shelling,suicide bombings,etc..),stop all of the hate rhetoric, that it would be he Israelis that would continue on with the fighting & incursions? NO WAY!! They left Gaza in good faith, hoping & praying that would the cycle of violence. What did they get for this land for peace deal? Hamas “voted” in to power, endless rocket & missle fire, and the continued call for Israel’s death & destruction. Not such a good deal for Israel, Huh? Hamas refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist, and as long as that continues Israel will have no true “partner in peace”. This fact seems lost on the rest of the world & I don’t know why. I pray for Israel every day. Shalom to Eretz Y’Israel!!
January 12th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I am constantly watching the Israeli TV channel that we subscribe to in Canada and am heartbroken by the children who are terrified to leave their homes, some of whom can seldom be coaxed out of the Mamad. When they draw, it is of Qassams falling on their homes and killing their families. Any child under the age of 8 who lives in Sderot believes there is no other way to live.
And yet, in the mainstream Western media, I have yet to see anything about this tragic state of affairs. I hope your video will bring this home to people who only seem to care about the suffering of children who are not Jewish.
Thanks, and stay safe.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
To Andrew,
Your post misses the point completely. It’s not a question of which side is losing more people. You need to look beyond that, to the reasons for this conflict. Those reasons are clearly spelled out in this blog. If Hamas had ever taken any steps to stop the rockets, in accordance with their agreements (they didn’t even stop during the “ceasefire”), Israel would have no need to hit back. That’s the very crux of this. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they are caught in this horrible situation because the government they elected insists on its “right” to eradicate the state of Israel. They are also caught in a situation where their government cares more about the media response to their deaths (and here, you prove yourself to be yet another “useful idiot”) than they care about protecting the very people who voted them into power. Given this, your attempt to create some moral equivalence based on pure numbers looks not only idiotic, but raises the question of where you stand when it comes to your own ethics and morality.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:31 am
When you feel like you need a breather, please feel free to come and stay with us in the center of the country.
You are SO brave. We can not ( and don’t really want to ) begin to imagine what it is like to live under such circumstances for three weeks, let alone 8 years.
We are all praying for yours and the soldiers’ safety,
Tihiyu Briim
January 12th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Your blog gives a very precise description of the situation in Sderot.
I understand from Andrew’s comment he really doesn’t understand how the Media operate. Andrew, have a look at my take on the Media and my last Shabbat’s experiences in Sderot. http://2realreality2.blogspot.com/
Robert
January 12th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hi there,
Didn’t manage to locate your name above. Really impressed and respect your ability to survive under the stress of life in Sderot. Here in Tel Aviv, we’ve got it good… the bubble. But I feel for you, really I do. I’m so pleased that our government finally had the balls to do something even though it seems largely inspired by Kadima’s leader’s political future’s more than anything else. However, they are doing it and doing it right so far. I hope and prey for the welfare of all of our soldiers, of all of my brothers and sisters sitting in bomb shelters in the South and for the innocent Gazan civillians that have nothing to do with terror or Hamas. As for Hamas terrorists, they’ve got themselves into this, the ones that die, well I cannot feel sorry for them. Thugs.
I will end by saying that you also have a great deal more support from average folk outside of Israel who are not even Jewish. Contacts in my business have been in touch with me wishing me well. There’s one guy in particular - Paul. He might be reading this, he’s turning into a regular Zionist. There are a lot of people around the world who do not understand why Israel is bombing and fighting the Hamas, but there are MANY also that do, and many are protesting in support of Israel.
I will end by saying, if at some point you’d like a break then I invite you to stay at my place. I have a large apartment in Tel Aviv and will be honoured to have you as my guests. My email is enclosed, I will also email your directly at the email address below to make sure you get it.
Wishing you again, all the best with my greatest respect.
Giles
January 12th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Hi,
I appreciate your description of life for you. So you know you are not alone I have been flying the Israeli flag a number of times per week until this latest conflict. Now I fly it every day, no other flag gets the honour. Also I have written to our newspaper and have had published a letter in support of Israel and the position they have finally taken. I felt anger due to the lack of action by your government to protect its citizens. Finally appropriate, not disproportional, action is being taken.
For the record I live in New Zealand, so far away, yet so close in heart to you all. Further I endorse Marta’s comments.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Thank you for sharing what life under fire is like. we, in hte diasporia need to hear from you. It helps us to converse with non-sympathizers when we have first hand information. Thanks again for yor bravery and determination to make the South of Israel an integral part of Israel.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Laura,
You write beautifully and honestly, and after watching the trailer for your film, in the parlance of today’s youth, I know the completed work will be “awesome” - I have made a small contribution and would encourage other readers of this blog to jump on the “band” wagon
I live in Canada and while Israel is always on my mind, so to speak, it has been particularly so during the past two weeks - I spend hours reading the depressingly ill-informed and biased MSM news coverage (not to mention the scurrilous pro-Hamas propaganda in comments and talkbacks). So, your blog and movie trailer provided a very pleasant contrast.
I wish you and Avi all the very best, and every success in this endeavour. And I pray that the government of Israel - now that it has finally woken up and come to its senses - will stay the course without succumbing to the pressures from those who just don’t seem to give a damn about Israel’s security needs.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:38 am
I cannot believe what you people are going through. U are correct. The information we read in the daily papers is rubbish. We need to get this kind of information into the media.
I am going to put a link to your site on my blog, and will also forward your blog details to local media. Maybe, just maybe, someone there will decide to post the truth!
Good luck and God bless.
Salagatle!
January 13th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Thanks for the wonderful in depth article on live in Israel. It is always unfortunate that the media will only tell one side of the story. I am from South Africa and we also tried to protect our way of living. We created apartheid which the whole world condemned. Today we have lost that battle against the rest of the world. What we did try and protect ourselves from now became a constant threat. We can’t walk in the streets and are not safe in our own homes anymore. More people get murdered in this country annually than in war torn countries.
I hope you succeed in protecting you way of living.
January 13th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Hi…your blog details were passed to me by a Jewish friend, and I’m glad he did. The progressive sadness I felt while reading your blog, from where you started out so happy in the beginning, to where you are now, and how the focus of the blog has changed, has left me almost speechless. I posted a small entry on my own blog (http://dmdad.blogspot.com/2009/01/ever-heard-of-tzeva-adom.html) to see if I can get anyone to come and have a read of your plight too… Good luck, from South Africa.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:05 am
As bad as I feel for you what is going on in Gaza is another holocaust. Israel refuses to honor it’s commitment to peace by dismantling illegal settlements in Gaza and has made native people prisoners in there own lands. If someone shoots a rocket I don’t have a problem trying with Isreal try to eliminating the shooter, but what is going on now is madness. Since the US gave you practically the entire arsenal of your military blood is on my hands and it troubles me greatly. If you think this is the way to peace you are greatly mistaken. God help us all!!
January 15th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Greg…you need to get your head out your arse and do some serious introspection. In case you don’t realise it, as an American, you “have blood” on your hands from just about every war in the world since the USA’s declaration of independence from Britain. So, is it safe to assume that you don’t support the “War on Terror”? LOL…
January 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
First I have to address Greg. Be careful how you through the word ‘Holocaust’ around. It is extremely insulting to Jewish people all over the world. The use of the term ‘Gaza Holocaust’ was created by Hamas in its attempt to turn the world on its side. Have you heard of ‘The CNN Strategy?’ Read this link to get a perspective on the information you are using to base your opinion… http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1149129 . Keep in mind that you are comparing 1,000 casualties in an defensive movement to 6 MILLION casualties in an atempt to annihilate an entire people.
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I am very greatful for having read this blog. It sounds like a horrible way to live but I commend you on your courage and your resiliance to make the truth heard. I will do my best to help from here in Dallas, TX, USA. I hope you wont mind my sending this blog link to media outlets in my area.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Greg,
Just a small FYI. Israel UNILATERALLY dismantled ALL Jewish settlements in Gaza in 2005 by sending in the Israeli army and forcibly evacuating every citizen (if someone else would have done it, we would have called it ethnic/religious cleansing!).
You can read about it here (and see photos):
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ExodusFromGaza.html
Every last jewish settlement was evaculated from Gaza. And guess what? That brought the Hamas geographically CLOSER so that they could fire their rockets from shorter range.
So now we can agree what Israel has sacrified for “their commitment to peace”. What has Hamas sacrified for theirs?
January 18th, 2009 at 1:03 am
Laura,
It was a true honor to have you join us on Peter Himmelman’s program last week. I have just finished watching the selected footage from your film. I’m moved by your complete dedication. You are giving voice to the beautiful people of Sderot.
I feel their song, I see their hope. Avi’s mission to empower the musical gifts of this generation is truly inspiring.
Peace to you both.