In Israel, Storm of Rockets Rains Pain and Despair

In this scruffy Israeli burg next to the Gaza Strip, the sky often rains steel and children beg to sleep with their parents.

Palestinian fighters in Gaza have fired their crude Kassam rockets into Sderot so often during the last four years, occasionally with deadly results, that nearly everyone in this town of 25,000 has a story about a near miss.

The barrage of homemade Kassams has grown more intense in recent months, heightening fears in a community that has seen more than 410 attacks since 2001 began, according to military sources.

Children are often too afraid to go to school. Business owners have watched commerce wither. Many residents say they long to leave, but in this impoverished place where joblessness is close to 20%, few have the money to do so. Housing prices have plummeted.

“We have children at home and don’t know what to do,” said Morris Haddad, 41, who sells produce a block from where a Kassam hit days earlier, spraying shrapnel and severely injuring a 17-year-old girl. “We feel helpless, with our hands in our pockets.”

Settled in the 1950s mainly by Jewish immigrants from North Africa, Sderot was once best known for its uncanny ability to produce rock bands. Now it’s a rallying point for foes of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw settlers and soldiers from Gaza this year.

Opponents say the absence of Israeli patrols would make it easier for militant groups to hit Sderot or craft a more powerful and accurate weapon able to reach the city of Ashkelon, six miles north of the Gaza border.

Amid the debate, Sderot lives by a grim daily rhythm. Residents stay indoors as much as they can, soothe their children when the town’s warning system blares and, after the crash of the latest salvo, curse their government for its apparent inability to end the attacks. “It is a town in trauma,” Mayor Eli Moyal said. “It’s a town where it is impossible to be a town.”

Unlike Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip that also come under frequent attack, residents note, Sderot sits in Israel proper.

The town’s pleas for help gained wider notice after two residents -- one of them a 3-year-old child -- died when a Kassam struck outside a nursery school in June. In September, two more children, ages 2 and 4, were killed.

The 17-year-old hurt in the Jan. 15 strike died of her wounds Friday. When struck, she was shielding her younger brother with her body after hearing the alert, witnesses said.

Two days before that attack, Sderot lost three residents when gunmen attacked a Gaza border crossing, killing six Israelis. The town devoted Jan. 17 to mourning, shuttering stores and classrooms as part of a protest that drew media coverage across Israel.

The next day, residents and officials marched to the northern Gaza border, just a mile away as the crow flies. There, they hurled a cardboard Kassam toward Palestinian villages from which most of the rockets have been fired.

Sderot officials sounded pleased that national leaders had shown up, although President Moshe Katsav reportedly had to meet with local leaders in the town’s reinforced auditorium for fear that City Hall might not stand up to a rocket strike.

Sharon held his weekly Cabinet meeting in Sderot on Sunday to show the government’s support for the town. Israel is watching to see if the new Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, can halt the Kassams. If not, Sharon has warned of a new, major offensive against militants in Gaza. Previous Israeli raids stopped the attacks only temporarily.

In a promising sign, the rocket volleys have abated in recent days as Abbas dispatched Palestinian police to the launch areas while trying to get militants to agree to a cease-fire.

Sderot residents say they have endured enough. Many parents report that their children have been traumatized by the strikes, which often are preceded by the broadcast alert. The so-called Red Dawn warnings give residents 20 to 30 seconds to find shelter. The stress shows up in the schools’ 35% to 40% absentee rate and in health problems, parents said.

“Every day when she hears Red Dawn -- that’s it, she starts to get nervous and runs to the toilet,” said Sarah Amir, hugging her 7-year-old daughter, Leora, who complains of stomach pain and refuses to go to school.

Amir and her husband, Vladimir, joined a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have transformed the face and accent of Sderot in the last 15 years. Many now wonder if they made a mistake in coming here.

The couple prepares food at their tiny restaurant, though few customers come nowadays. On a recent day, they stared at empty tables again. “If I had money,” Vladimir Amir said, “I’d leave this country altogether.”

On the town’s pasture-fringed outskirts, David Sheetrit glumly led a visitor through his nearly deserted horse farm. Riders were frightened away because so many rockets had struck nearby, he said.

He recalled the days before the intifada broke out, when Palestinian merchants would visit from Gaza to buy horses. Now only the rockets arrive.

Sheetrit gestured toward an empty riding ring and the snack kiosk, where customers used to gather. “There is no work,” he said. “Everything is finished because of the Kassams.”