Throngs of children stepped off the bus after a full-day tiyul (field trip) and shuffled past my volunteer group en route to their final class at AMIT Day School in Sderot, Israel. They were a lively bunch to say the least; there was singing, talking and lots of laughing. There was one girl, however, who caught my eye. She was small for her age and had light brown hair and bright eyes that gave off an appearance of innocence, though she was clearly mature beyond her years. I stopped to ask where her grade had been all day and if she enjoyed the trip. She quietly answered that they had been on a hike and that it was “just OK.” I asked for her name, and she politely answered that it was Or (“light” in Hebrew). She was delighted to hear that my middle name is Ora, and we continued to chat before her teacher called her into the classroom.
After the hustle and bustle in the hallway subsided, the principal gathered my group into a room to delegate our volunteer work and explain the context within which her students live their daily lives. My friends and I had previously learned about the situation in Sderot and knew the basics. It is a Southwestern city in Israel that is two-and-a-half miles from Gaza and has been under constant rocket attack for seven years. More than 3,600 rockets have fallen in Sderot since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, including 1,800 in 2007 alone. While there are several towns under attack, Sderot bears the brunt of most rockets because of its size relative to the other Negev cities. Sderot had a population of 24,000 until the Kassam rockets rained on the city and more than 4,000 residents moved away. The rockets currently used against the innocent citizens of Sderot are mostly supplied by Iran and smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.
The principal assigned my group the job of tutoring a fourth grade English class. At that point, I made a conscious decision not to use the day as an opportunity to interview the children as victims under constant attack, but to actually get to know them and give them an opportunity to enjoy a distraction from typical class work. I scanned the lively classroom, and the students were nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement in anticipation of their American guests. To the far left of the classroom I spotted Or, who proceeded to look up with her big, bright eyes and smile at me in recognition. Without hesitation, Or took my pen and drew me a picture of a rocket heading toward her house and her family running down the steps to the bomb shelter. She wrote the words “tzevah adom” (red alert) to indicate the siren that warns the citizens of Sderot that a rocket will hit within 15 seconds. She explained that her family has been sleeping in the basement of her house for the past several years for fear of having insufficient time to run down to the shelter should a red alert occur at night. These kids have had to mature years before their time in order to deal with this situation. As the bell rang and Or was heading home, she hugged me and asked me if I will ever return to Sderot. When I told her that I hope to come back, she said, “Good, because most people are too scared to visit me.”
After leaving the AMIT School, my friends and I went on a tour of a lookout point from which you can see Gaza to the left, Ashkelon’s industrial zone straight ahead (also a target of attacks) and the city of Sderot to the right. Noam Bedein, the director of the Sderot Media Center and a resident of Sderot, was our guide. He explained that the terrorist organizations that launch the rockets do everything in their power to get recognition of their “successful” attacks by launching them just before the morning, noon and evening news and also increase attacks on “special occasions” such as President Bush’s visit to Israel. Just after Mr. Bedein mentioned the unusual quiet of the day, we heard a loud blast. We saw the smoke rise up from the precise spot where the rocket was launched in Gaza. Later that night, back in the relative quiet and peace of Jerusalem, we heard that five rockets had followed the one we had seen. All I could think of was Or, her family and their mad rush to the bomb shelter.
Bedein will be speaking at the university Feb. 27 in 0220 Jimenez at 6:30 p.m. about the daily life of the 20,000 Sderot residents living in fear. Please come, be informed and make a difference for these terrified adults and children.
Adina Rosenblatt is a freshman letters and sciences major. She can be reached at aor7288@yahoo.com.
