16 Alarms Since The Cease Fire Began

So, after some 400 rocket were fired at us Hamas / PIJ have called for a “cease fire”. At 5:30 this morning it was supposed to take effect; five hours into it “all’s quiet on the western front” (laterally …Gaze is on our western border!) How long will it last no one knows.

And now we enter yet another “Cease Fire”. .. I can’t tell you how many cease fire’s we have had since the first Gaza war. There is a GROSS misconception to what “cease fire” means to Hamas or the PIJ. To a western mentality “cease fire” is a laying down of arms and through mutual understanding try to come to a peace agreement.

To our terrorist neighbors “hudna” which is translated to “cease fire” has a whole different meaning… to them it DOES NOT mean laying down of arms and through mutual understanding try to come to a peace agreement… It means lay down our arm FOR NOW as we rebuild, re-group, re-arm, re-train so we can come back stronger on another day. That has happened again and again over the past 13 years and another 5000 rocket fired at us.

Tomorrow during the Friday riots at the boarded we will know if the “cease fire will last or if there will be more rockets fired us.

“Hudna” which is translated to “cease fire” DOES NOT mean laying down of arms to Hamas

Trauma Artwork
Trauma Artwork

I have lived in Sderot since 2006 (wouldn’t live anywhere else on earth) and have seen it time and time and time and time and time and … you get the point. This, so called cease fire, will maybe last a day, a week, a few month or even a year but as sure as the sun came up this morning we WILL be back at this place again!!!

Schools have been closed for the past three day and they will more than likely, if this cease fire holds be open tomorrow for half a day. There won’t be any teaching, there won’t be any learning but there will be plenty of dealing with stress and the fears the children come to school with.

Some Take Away Stories

My son works at Eliti, the makers of Bamba and other products. As is normal for this un-normal situation, after each “Tseva Adom” alarm and the “boom” that accompanies it, my wife calls, as dose every other mother, all the kids, her mom and relatives and friends to make sure everyone is O.K. Her son said he was in the bomb shelter at work and was O.K. What he did not tell her was the Kassam fell where he works. The Kassam failed to explode as it hit a water main, which cooled it off. She found out about it from the news on the T.V. He didn’t want to worry her…

Dallia a cancer patient and Mote is disabled from a hit and run accident. They had some work done to their home eight months ago. In the process the people who repaired the floor had to take the door to the bomb shelter off.
Unfortunately when the job was done the door was never reinstall and was nowhere to be found. When the “Tsava Adom” alarm sounds there in now no way to be safe, there is no door to shut. The best they can do is for all of them (Dallia and Mote, their son and daughter-in-law and their two little children) to crouch down in in the corner. The workers are long gone and the government is willing to pay for half of the cost of a new steal door,with them having to pay the other half but they don’t have the other half. We have asked them to find out what their share of the cost for the door will be and we will do our best to provide them with their half to get the door replaced before this “cease fire” is a thing of the past…

Meriam and Yakcov got married in June of this year. Yakove is one hundred percent disabled, which leave him unable to walk and running to a bomb shelter is out oof the question. What little walking he can do comes with sever pain in both of his leg. In addition do to his medical problems he has put on a far amount of weight which doesn’t help his mobility either. They moved into an apartment that they could afford; it has a bomb shelter but… it is not attached to the apartment, which means within fifteen seconds or less they need to leave whatever room they are in and make their way outside to the bomb shelter. There is no way he can make it to the bomb shelter in time. On Wednesday he was in the bathroom when “Tseva Adom” sounded. He couldn’t make it to the bomb shelter in time so he just laid on the bathroom floor and cried. After the “booms” he then had the problem of getting up. They are now staying with Meriam’s grandmother. They are looking for a new place to live but with limited income there are not a lot of options for them…

Everyone is pushed to their limits

With stores closed and factories closed too many people have gone without work. Some employers will be able to pay their employs or they will take their vacation time to make up for the lost work; others are just out of luck for the past three days. I expect we will be getting more calls for help than usual in the days and weeks to come as we all deal with our own and different situation after the past three days.

At times like this everyone is pushed to their limits and Hope For Sderot is no exception. If you can find it in your heart to send a donation at this time, it would be greatly appreciated… To those of our faithful supporter THANK YOU for your continued support!