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In southern Israel, rockets are a reality for once-safe towns

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/36463/full/36463/in-southern-israel-rockets-are-a-reality-for-once-safe-towns/ In southern Israel, rockets are a reality for once-safe towns Friday, January 2, 2009 | by dina kraft ashkelon, israel | Another rocket warning siren wails, and eight members of the Levi family, including a grandmother and a newborn baby, quickly cram into the small bedroom made of reinforced concrete that serves as the family’s bomb shelter. “Come on, come on! Get in!” they shout. Just before the heavy metal door slams shut, the family dog, Pick, is whisked inside. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they listen as the sound of the siren’s wail trails off, replaced by the thud of the rocket landing. Turning on the television news a few minutes later, they see it has landed a few blocks away at a local soccer stadium. Earlier in the day, another rocket landed much closer — just across the street. The Grad-type missile hit a construction site, killing Hani el Mahdi, a 27-year-old construction worker from a Bedouin town in the Negev, and injured several other workers at the scene, some of them seriously. “After hearing the boom this morning I’m just not myself,” said Geula Levi, 50, whose house quickly filled up with family members. “I’ve been trying to make lunch but I simply can’t seem to get anything together.” Since the fighting began over the weekend, two of Levi’s adult children have moved back in, one of them bringing his wife and their 2-month-old daughter. The baby never leaves the reinforced room. Her mother, Vered, ventures out only to get food from the kitchen. About 60 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel on Dec. 29. Many landed in Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip. Some reached as far as Beersheva, some 28 miles from Gaza. A rocket that hit Ashdod, about 20 miles from Gaza, killed one woman as she left her car to take cover at a bus stop. This week marked the first time the two major coastal cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod have been subject to ongoing rocket barrages from Gaza. Ashkelon, home to some 120,000 people, had been targeted before, but hit only rarely. Ashdod had been considered out of range of Gaza’s rocket fire, but Hamas’ newly imported missiles — thought to be smuggled into the strip from Egypt during the six-month cease-fire that officially ended Dec. 19 — have increased the range of Gaza’s rockets. Geula Levi said she was fully supportive of the army’s operation in Gaza, which by the end of the day Dec. 29 had killed 350 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them Hamas militiamen, according to reports. “They learned their lessons from the Second Lebanon War, so I think this time things will be conducted more intelligently,” she said of Israel’s military leaders. “We’d rather suffer with the missiles now than become like Kiryat Shemona, which suffered for years,” said her eldest son, Avichai, 27. Outside, the sound of Israeli artillery being fired into Gaza echoed in the streets, which were quiet and mostly empty. Staring out into the eerie emptiness were campaign posters for the upcoming election, including a billboard with a photograph of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni next to the words, “The courage to say the truth.” Livni’s party, along with those of her main rivals, canceled campaign events scheduled for this week. At the entrance to Ashkelon, one of those rivals, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the architect of the Israeli strike on Gaza, had his own image up on a billboard with the slogan “Looking truth in the face.” For the people of Ashkelon, who are living their leaders’ “truths,” there was stoicism mixed with fear. “It is miserable, but it will go on for a while,” said Capt. David Biton, the police commander who oversees the southern district that includes half a million people and stretches from Ashdod to Sderot — all now within range of Gaza’s rockets. Galit Ben-Asher Yonah, 37, said it was “the shock of my life” to discover that her home in Gan Yavne, a bedroom community near Ashdod, now has come under attack. Gan Yavne was hit for the first time Dec. 28, and two more rockets fell the following day. Yonah, originally from Los Angeles, is the mother of two young daughters and a newborn son. She says she will be keeping all her children at home for the next few days. “Never in my life did I think I would have to explain to my 5-year-old that we have to go to the basement because a bomb was falling,” she said. “And there she was guiding me, telling me to cover my head with my hands and stay away from the window as she was taught in nursery school.” Tal, Yonah’s 5-year-old, also brought down a snack of bananas and cookies for them after the first rocket fell, telling her in a serious but calm voice that they might be sitting in the basement, which is reinforced against rockets, for a while. In nearby Nitzan, where many of the families who were evicted three years ago from the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza still live in temporary homes, there are no protective rooms to which to flee. “We left the Kassam rockets to get Katyushas instead,” said Yuval Nefesh, 41, referring to the longer-range Katyusha rockets now striking Israel from Gaza. Before, Palestinians relied almost exclusively on the Kassam, a crude rocket with a range of 10 miles and poor accuracy. He shrugs when asked how the people are coping. “We pray,” he said. At least two rockets were fired at the Negev’s largest city, Beersheva, on the night of Dec. 30, sending a Palestinian rocket deeper into Israel, 28 miles, than ever before. Beersheva is home to some 250,000 residents; there were no reports of casualties in the attack, but one of the rockets landed inside a residential area, causing damage. Two Kassam rockets that were fired at the Eshkol region landed in open areas and did not cause wounded or damage. A rocket fired at a Sha’ar Hanegev kibbutz crashed into the communal dining room and caused damage but no casualties. On the morning of Dec. 30, a rocket landed in Kiryat Malachi, the first time that the town was hit by a projectile fired from Gaza. Several people suffered shock in the attack, though there were no reports of casualties or damage. Earlier, a Sderot man was lightly wounded when a Kassam fired at the city hit a house. The building sustained damage in the attack. The Jerusalem Post contributed to this report.

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