This was our Tuesday early morning wake up call at 2:15 A.M.. Since then, it has been one Kassam after another. The following is just a little insight into our lives living on the Gaza border…

So here we sit and wait. Some have chosen to leave Sderot, some are staying close to home, (if not in their bomb shelters), and there are others saying “ Dam the torpedoes – full steam ahead” as they try to carry on their lives as usual!
I am somewhere in the middle. I don’t plan on leaving, and I don’t plan on living in my bomb shelter.  But all that could change without notice.

I have lived in Sderot since 2008. I moved here weeks before the first Gaza war. Four wars later, some 11,000 ( not a typo 11,000) Kassam rockets later, I am still proud to call Sderot home and be considered a Sderotian!

I know what it is like to walk through broken glass and smoke to see if your friend who was in the store that just got hit is ok….. she was. I know what it is like to be caught outside with no place to run to or hide when the Tseva Adom alarm sounds. I have been close enough to an exploding Kassam to feel the shock waves from it as it explodes. I know the clicking sound the Tseva Adom alarm makes before it sounds off and the sound iron dome makes as it launches. All of those sounds do not compare to the sound of an exploding Kassam.

The thing is, I am not the only one who feels and hears this. Everyone in Sderot has experienced it. I have lived with this for 16 years, there are others who have lived with it for 22 years. The saddest part of this is, there are children who have lived with this ALL their lives! Anyone under the age of 22 falls into that category.

This quiet before the storm we are experiencing now is unnerving, this has never happened before. You can cut the tension in the air with a knife. As we sit, go out, and wait, all this runs through our minds.

I share this just to put this into perspective and to give you a little insight into what we are going through. In reality, there is NO place you can go in Israel to get away from this. If it doesn’t come from Gaza it will come from the north or from both sides at the same time.

 

Since I first wrote this on 10 May 2023, everything has escalated and we have been pounded with some 575 Kassam rockets, ordered to stay in or least close to our “Safe Room”. Schools have been closed since Tuesday and will remain closed through Friday. The situation will be reassessed after Shabbat to see if they will remain closed or open next week. Most restaurants are closed as are fast food places.

Eight years ago and before “Iron Dome”, my wife and her friend heard “Tseva Adom” the first time and got out of the car. The second time they did the same. The third  time they debated whether to pull the car over and run to a safe place. Their choices were to run to a synagogue or the bus stop, which in Sderot all bus stops are bomb shelters. They decided to run to the bus stop. The Kassam hit the synagogue and shrapnel destroyed the car they were in. Needless to say, these past days have been really hard for her.

When “Tseva Adom” sounds now, even my dog starts shaking and his heart starts beating fast, he begins to drool and has difficulty breathing. We are not the only ones who suffer from Kassam attacks!

Hope For Sderot is here to help as much as we can. We are on the front lines and are not exempt from fear, trauma or the danger that everyone else in Sderot is exposed to daily.

It is your love and support that opens the door and makes it all possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, which are indeed in our bomb shelter!