BY NOAM BEDEIN, ARUTZ 7—
On Sunday morning, August 21, I traveled to Ashdod – a 20 minute drive from Tel Aviv – two days after the fifth-largest city in the country was hit by seven Iranian Grad rockets fired from Gaza.
More than 100 missiles, rockets, and mortar shells were fired at Israel since Friday the 19th, according to the IDF spokesman.
The total number of missiles fired from Gaza from the ceasefire declared on January 18, 2009 until today, approaches 900.
When I reached Ashdod, I drove the car as I had become accustomed to drive it in Sderot – I opened the windows, turned down the radio and tried to be alert as possible. If you hear the siren, you have 45 seconds to take cover, much more than the 15 seconds I had become accustomed to in Sderot.
I parked my car on the Admor of Gur Street, where the Grad struck Friday morning, in the middle of a large residential complex with a radius of 50 meters. It holds over 900 high school and yeshiva students on a regular weekday.
I heard the news at 9 a.m., which reported the death of Yossi Ben-Shoshan, who was killed by a Grad missile in Be’er Sheva on the night before, and said that a young girl was fighting for her life Soroka Hospital.
James Buzaglo, 56, took shelter in the compound where the Grad struck and described the force of the explosion and the need to give first aid to seriously injured lying right beside him. The missile struck as he left the small synagogue some 20 meters from the center of the explosion. He thanked G-d that the bomb struck 15 minutes before the children were supposed to arrive at the school.
I drove on, to where the other Grad missile fell that morning. It made a hole three feet deep in the sand, right between two small structures that served as a synagogue. The missile damaged the rickety structure, but left the Ark and holy books complete.
Ariel Zeldman, 26, came to examine the damage to the synagogue where he prayed that morning. He recalled how the worshipers all ran across the road toward the seven-story apartment buildings; how he had held the hand of an elderly man who could only make it half way and who was injured by the intensity of the blast.
It seems that 45 seconds are not enough for everyone.
I exited from the Port of Ashdod and took Route 4 southward towards Sderot, the world’s Bomb Shelter Capital. On the way I saw protest tents to the right of the road, just before the community of Nitzan, with placards saying “six have passed – how much longer?”
This, of course, is the encampment of former Gush Katif residents who currently live in Nitzan after the “Disengagement” in 2005.
How ironic that?
Those residents in Gush Katif warned the people in Zion and the media that “the missiles would come to Ashdod” if there were no military and civilian presence in Gaza.
And now, improved Iranian Grads with a range of 60 kilometers place even Tel Aviv’s tent dwellers are under the same threat. However, it is unlikely that any of the social protest leaders ever demonstrated against the uprooting of these people from their homes… or for the social justice that they have yet to receive.
The solutions that Israel has provided to Sderot and the Gaza Belt after the Disengagement cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars. This was just for reinforcing residences, schools and public buildings within a range of 4.7 kilometers from Gaza.
For the cities located further from Gaza, but within the 40 km. range, the state provided the Iron Dome system, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and provides a solution that is a lot like Russian roulette.
The residents of a smaller “development town” like Ofakim can only dream that an Iron Dome battery will protect them. The town numbers 30 thousand people, and is located 20 km. east of the center of Gaza city.
Meanwhile, residents of Ofakim take heavy blows from Gaza’s terror artillery. A Grad missile that hit Ofakim last Saturday night went straight into the Amoyal house and caused extensive damage inside it. Personally, I have not seen wreckage on such a scale in 5 years of documenting Kassam strikes on Sderot. Pieces of concrete walls 20 centimeters thick are shattered in pieces and scattered throughout the house. The ceramic bath is completely broken; there is total destruction in four rooms. In the last bedroom, I find Kfir, 25 who was injured lightly from shrapnel and hears a ringing in his ears.
It seems that a lot of resources and money were poured into false solutions to the rocket attacks that began as a result of the Disengagement. Despite what the leaders and sponsors of Tel Aviv’s Rothschild protests say, the “settlements” are not the main reason for the state’s financial woes of or those of the middle class. It’s time to deal with root problems rather than searching for specific solutions for every time one city comes under threat.
We must deal with the roots of the problem – UNRWA and Hamas use terrorism, educate and incite, and call on Arabs to return to villages where they lived before the War of Independence – in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva, etc. – instead of building their lives in Gaza. We must make Israeli public opinion understand that the problem is not territory or settlements, but our legitimacy right to live as Jews in Israel, and to be safe.