Dov just returned from five days in Sderot and the surrounding communities. For those of you who don't know, Sderot is the city that has come under the most rocket fire from Hamas. This community has been enduring rocket fire for the past 8 years, but it has intensified as of late, hence the current war in Gaza.
Since the beginning of the war, the children of Sderot and the surrounding communities have been unable to attend school, which has of course created a hardship for the parents, posing the question: What do I do with my children and how can I ensure their safety while I am at work? Most often, the parents have to miss work and stay home. The question of ensuring their children's safety, however, is not so easily answered. From what Dov observed, the children venture outside sometimes, but play right beside their bomb shelters or right beside their apartment's "protected room." These rooms are like bomb shelters, just within an individual family's apartment.
While in Sderot, Dov met with the Mayor of the Community Council and made connections with the Youth and Children Department of the city. The Mayor reported to Dov that an entire team of psychologists has been put together at the local community college in Sderot to help the children deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are children being treated daily.
Dov told me that after the first dozen red alerts he heard, he completely lost count. A red alert is a siren that sounds when there is a rocket incoming. A recording of a calm woman's voice announcing the incoming rocket is also blared over loudspeakers. One generally has about 5-15 seconds to find shelter before the rocket hits. As I said above, Dov was only there for 5 days and wasn't able to keep count of all the red alerts he heard; the children living there have had to deal with this for years.
Since the war started, besides these red alerts, the children (and all the residents) have also had to deal with the constant sounds of war: F-15 fighter jets rumbling overhead, the constant buzz of unmanned drones, shelling from tanks and artillery batteries, Apache and Vulcan helicopter gunships - the war is happening a mile from these communities.
