Residents of southern Israel continue to be terrorized by dozens of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities.
Since the beginning of the year there have been over 140 rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza into civilian areas. There have already been over 80 rocket and mortar attacks since July 1, the latest of which blasted two houses in the town of Sderot. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians who live in the area near Gaza are enduring the daily fear of being hit and killed by a rocket or mortar.
With a maximum of 15 seconds to make it to the bomb shelter, residents of Sderot always know the location of hundreds of bomb shelters that dot the towns.
The “Red Alert” alarm has been going off constantly in Sderot and surrounding communities as Hamas-controlled Gaza continues to bombard the area with rockets and mortars for the past week – at more than two dozen attacks in the past 36 hours.
Israel’s Reshet Bet radio reporter Asaf Buzaylov reported that good luck coupled with Israeli civil defense measures prevented loss of life:
“We could have been reporting about funerals and traumatic events, but this morning was filled with miracles… One of the warheads didn’t even explode… there is a surrealistic atmosphere.”
Most apartments and houses in Sderot have been fitted with reinforced “safe rooms” where residents rush to when the Red Alert alarm sounds. Resident Tammy Jorno says she and her friend and their four children took shelter in their safe room when a Qassam rocket slammed into her apartment, destroying the outer wall, despite the warhead failing to explode.
“It was fear, panic, everything,” she said in a Reshet Bet interview. “The safe room saved our lives. If the rocket had penetrated a little bit more towards the lower floor…I don’t know what would have happened.”
Police bomb squad members evacuated the house and successfully disarmed the warhead. Afterwards, Jorno sent her children to day camp, but said, “I didn’t show them so much stress, but after I got them back to their routine then I fell apart and cried.”
Latest reports indicate that the Israel is moving reinforcements to the border to put pressure on Hamas to stop the rocket attacks.
[Photo: Sderot Media Center]