Imagine that you are 18 years old. You have just completed high school and in a few months you will enter the army. In the meantime, you spend your time going out with friends and working to save some money - like any other typical teenager in Israel.

One afternoon, you come home exhausted from work and collapse into bed for a nap. Suddenly, in the middle of your nap you find yourself waking up to the sound of glass shattering - all over your back.

It takes you a moment to realize that the window above your bed has exploded and that shards of glass lie everywhere. Your dad comes racing in, picks you up and carries you outside to safety.

Welcome to a moment in the life of Ilan Dahan, a Sderot 18-year-old who slept through the siren warning of the impending Kassam, only to wake up to the rocket explosion in his backyard on Tuesday evening, May 19.

“It’s a miracle that all I got was this scratch,” Ilan says, dazedly pointing to a red mark on his back, where a piece of glass cut through.

Ilan’s family stands around in shock. His mother Shula looks at her son tearfully. “I never expected this to happen to us during the ceasefire,” she says.

The back of the Dahan’s home is covered in debris and glass, while rocket shrapnel marks the walls and ceiling of the home. An evening breeze blows through the windowless windows. Ilan’s father, Avi, stands by his son. “I was terrified that something had happened to him,” Avi says in a quiet voice.

Now imagine that, after such a rocket attack, the kind of therapy needed to get shock victims back on track is no longer available. Due to significant budget cuts, trauma therapy facilities in Sderot, which have played a valuable role in rehabilitating residents of the rocket-torn community, are now in danger of closing down. (more…)

Photo: Anav Silverman, Sderot Media Center

There have been many questions bouncing around in the media this week. Why is Israel at war? Why are there so many Hamas men dead? Why are Hamas firing rockets at Israel? A war of resistance, some say. Israel is holding a siege against Gaza. Palestinians are starving and suffering.

And who is to blame?

Israel of course. At least that is the conclusion that emerges within the headlines of AP and Reuters news reports, European news media, and countless Internet blogs on the current fighting.

For those who seek objective answers to those questions, the unfolding tragedy of Sderot and the western Negev must be taken into account.

There has been a war of terror on Sderot from more than eight years now. During this time period, an estimated 8,000-10,000 Palestinian rockets have been fired at Sderot and the western Negev from the Gaza Strip. There was not one serious long-term military response from Israel to the rocket attacks during that time besides the closing of crossings and checkpoints.

In the meantime, hundreds of Israelis homes and properties have been destroyed, over 700 Israelis wounded, and thousands psychologically traumatized by Palestinian rocket fire. Periodically, schools in Sderot and the western Negev have been forced to close, as normal life cruelly transforms into a marathon of 15 seconds, (the number of seconds one has to escape to shelter when the Tzeva Adom, or Red Color alert is set off by an impending Palestinian rocket).

Sderot and western Negev residents have been forced to sit and endure Palestinian rocket terror to the point that there is now a generation of Sderot children who are showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as early as age three. (more…)

This is the segment that aired on IBA (The Israel Broadcast Authority) that combined many of my reports from the Gaza border:

I flew over Southern Israel with Israel spokesperson Miri Eisen. Check out the video for a bird’s eye view of Gaza City, Gush Katif and Sderot. The strategic reality of the situation is much clearer from this perspctive:

Here’s an aerial view of Tel Aviv, presented here just because it’s cool.

A Palestinian rocket exploded right outside a Sderot supermarket on Wednesday evening, December 17, in one of the worst Qassam attacks on Sderot since the ceasefire began. Rocket shrapnel lightly wounded three people, with one man suffering a light head wound, according to a MADA spokesperson on scene.

Fire trucks and ambulances lined outside the supermarket as shattered glass littered the entire area. Nine people including three young women were evacuated to Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon for severe shock.

The Qassam rocket caused heavy damage to at least 15 cars in the parking lot where it had exploded. The smell of serious gas leaks had Sderot firemen hosing the entire parking lot with water in order to prevent any fire.

Inside the supermarket, known as Victory, wine bottles lay shattered upon the floor, as shoppers made their way outside across puddles of wine and broken glass. Rocket shrapnel caused heavy damage to store merchandise, as the glass windows in the supermarket’s front entrance completely shattered.

A worker at Steimetsky Book Store across the street from the supermarket told Sderot Media Center, that she and her co-worker watched the Qassam rocket drop into the parking lot, about five meters away from the supermarket. “We saw the sparks and the smoke, and watched the rocket explode on impact. It was one of the most terrifying sights, I’ve ever seen,” said the worker, a student at Sapir College, who asked not to be named. (more…)

Do The Write Thing, a special seminar organized for Jewish journalist students by the Hagshama Department of the WZO and the Prime Minister’s Office in November, proved to be a very enlightening experience for me from day one of the program. It was an experience that was especially rewarding thanks to the students who had participated and whom I got to know over the few days that we spent together.

The most important day in such a program in regards to the bonding experience you share with the group, is the first day where everyone gets to know one another. I had missed part of spending the first day with the group because of my work and a series of unfortunate events.

I work for Sderot Media Center in Sderot, where my work there is intense and unrelenting, usually in relation to the number of Palestinian rockets fired at the western Negev region. On the first day of Do The Write Thing seminar, the DTWT participants were actually scheduled to come visit Sderot with Sderot Media Center. I was supposed to be their guide on that day and show them the reality of the city. However, on the day the group was scheduled to come, there was a volley of Palestinian rockets fired at Sderot and the western Negev early in the morning. Due to the security situation, the group could not arrive, and I was sadly disappointed but not surprised.

Sderot is a city that is often visited by many groups of students as it unfortunately stands to highlight how Palestinian terror on a small Israeli city, located three kilometers away from Gaza, has completely disrupted normal life. The Palestinian rocket fire has instilled fear and panic among innocent Israeli civilians, as bomb shelters and other protective structures emerge throughout Sderot year after year. The work I do entails much hasbara, or advocacy for the people of Sderot and sharing their stories of quiet survival under extraordinary frightening conditions. (more…)

In a recent study conducted by NATAL (Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War), researchers discovered that close to 56% of Sderot residents have suffered in some way from Palestinian rocket attacks. According to the report, presented by Natal Community Staff Director, Dr. Roni Berger in Beersheva on November 24, nearly half of Sderot’s population has been either physically or emotionally damaged by Palestinian rocket fire.

Over 4, 000 Sderot residents are suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) while one third of Sderot children, ages 13 to 18, have trauma-related learning disorders.

PTSD is a severe and ongoing reaction to a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm to the person, according to the National Institute for Mental Health. People who develop PTSD may have witnessed a loved one who was harmed in a traumatic event or were victims themselves.

Symptoms of PTSD usually begin three months after the ordeal but can also emerge years afterward. Some people can recover within 6 months while others have symptoms that last for much longer. For some people, the condition becomes chronic.

“The initial symptoms of shock include an accelerated heart rate, dry mouth, limbs ‘falling asleep,’ a sense of fainting, seeming paralyzed or even emotionally detached,” says Gabi Schreiber chief of psychiatry at Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital.

Dr. Adrianne Katz, head of the Sderot Mental Health Center says that the shock impacts the victim’s ability to function for months after the experiencing a Palestinian rocket explosion. “Many rocket terror victims suffer from depression, sleepless nights, severe anxiety, and have trouble going back to a regular routine,” she says. (more…)

December 19 is a significant day for Israelis civilians living on the other side of the Gaza Strip.

It is the day where the Hamas-Israel ceasefire officially comes to an end and the question to whether Palestinian rocket fire will resume on Israelis civilians living in the south, will officially be answered.

The question has been answered–to some degree–a little earlier than expected. After Israel entered the Gaza Strip to blow up a Hamas dug tunnel intended for the killing or kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Hamas fired a massive barrage of rockets-over 60–upon Israeli civilians through November 4-5.
Several more Palestinian rockets were fired at Israel throughout the past week, with a barrage of Qassam rockets fired at Sderot and the Eshkol region on Sunday, November 16 and Monday, November 17. The ceasefire to this effect has been violated, two and a half weeks into November, more than 80 times by Hamas with the firing of over 80 Qassam and mortar rockets at Israelis civilians living in the Negev.

Hamas’s Ceasefire Violations
(more…)