Israeli town bears brunt of attacks

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Sderot

Headmaster Amit Orenboch says his pupils had a near miss

Standing amid debris of plaster, broken tiles and splintered wood, Amit Orenboch points to the gaping hole in the classroom roof.

"It was a feeling of utter shock," says the headmaster of Yeshiva Tehnit school, referring to the Palestinian rocket that first punched through the ceiling and then an adjacent wall.

"If the rocket had been fired five minutes later this classroom would have been full of students."

It is the town of Sderot that has borne

the brunt of Qassam rocket attacks fired from Gaza by Palestinian militant groups.

Last weekend, this small Israeli town close to the Gaza border was pounded by more than 50 Qassams - a crude home-made rocket - severely injuring a 61-year-old school caretaker.

The step-up in attacks came after the militant group Hamas broke its 16-month ceasefire after accusing Israeli forces of firing a shell onto a beach that killed eight Palestinian civilians.

Protesting residents are demanding more is done to stop the attacks

But in the last few months the rockets have been falling in greater numbers.

According to the mayor of Sderot, Eli Moyal, an average of 80 rockets a month have landed in the town's municipal borders since September.

"If the residents don't really need to do something then they are not out on the streets," he says, referring to those who prefer to stay at home rather than risk being caught up in an attack.

Mr Moyal believes that the rocket attacks are not going to end any time soon - "not even after five years", he says - but that the people of Sderot will stay in their homes and "not let the terror win".

Hunger strike

Five residents of Sderot have been killed by rockets since 2000.

In this town, many of the residents are critical of the Israeli government, which they say is not doing enough to stop the rockets.

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz owns a modest roughcast home in the town, which has been a focus of demonstrations.

All I want to do is live in peace and quiet Hava Gad Sderot protester

Five residents of the town have gone on hunger strike saying that they will not eat until the Israeli government does more to protect them.

The protesters have set up a blue and white tent on a grassy area a minute's walk from Mr Peretz's house with placards saying "Stop the Qassams".

Hava Gad, 41, an alternative medicine healer, is one of those involved in the protest.

"All I want to do is live in peace and quiet," she says, as a group of Israeli children paint a large cardboard rocket to highlight their cause.

"For five years I've had to worry about the Quassams. My children sleep with me in the same bed because I'm worried about their safety."

Like many Israelis, Ms Gad says that Israel withdrew from its 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and has only got "terror" in return. Now, she has lost patience.

The town's residents fear for their safety after frequent attacks

"I think the only solution now is to send the tanks in and flatten as much of the Gaza Strip as we can," she says. "I never thought I would say that but what can I do?"

On Tuesday an Israeli air strike killed two Palestinian militants and seven Palestinian civilians after targeting a vehicle carrying rocket launchers about to be fired into Israel.

After the attack on the Yeshiva Tehnit school three weeks ago, students were no longer able to work in the school's second-storey classrooms.

When a warning siren sounded, the teenagers gathered at an outside concrete shelter designed to stop the rockets.

But following the rockets attacks at the weekend, only final year students who must take final examinations are permitted to attend school. The other students broke up early for summer.

For Mr Orenboch there can be only one response to the rockets. "If there are Qassams in Sderot then there must be rockets fired into Gaza," he says.