'We are living in a combat zone'

The Qassam rocket had destroyed the bathroom and blown down part of the wall to the kitchen. Smoke and dust swirled in the shaft of sunlight coming through the 4ft wide gash in the ceiling as Oshri and Karmit Malka sat huddled contemplating what was left of their home.

The Israeli town of Sderot, a mile from the Gaza strip, has been in the receiving end of 7,000 missiles and mortars in the past seven years, the most frequently attacked places in the country and held up as an example of Palestinian aggression. Apart from those killed and injured, hundreds more have been traumatised by the relentless routine of sirens blaring followed by explosions. The population, 24,000 seven years ago, is now 3,000 fewer, those who can get away have done so. Residents have started to stop celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel next week in protest against a government who they say have failed to protect them.

Fifteen rockets were fired into the town on the day the Malka’s home was hit. They came a day after a Palestinian woman and her four small children had been killed at their home in Beit Hanum, in the northern Gaza strip. I was to see the grief and anger in Gaza a few days later. But in Sderot the Malka family were wrapped up in their own misery and fear. “We were using the bathroom just an hour ago, our two children were using it”, said Mr Malka. “We could all have been killed. This could happen again, how can we continue living here?”

Adina Mastbaum, a 30-year-old teacher, and mother of six children, has been living in Sderot for eight years. She is angry at the international community who, she says, ignores these daily attempts to maim and murder people in Sderot and surrounding areas. “It is being done by Hamas, everyone knows that. Over in Gaza they teach children to hate Jews, they say we are going to be driven out. How can one have peace with people like that? What is the government doing about it? Why can’t they stop these rockets every day?

“Every day we have to take cover. It is affecting us all very deeply. My children are afraid of sudden noises, sometimes they are afraid of going out, what does this mean for their future?”

Liad Rosenberg, a social worker dealing with cases of trauma in the town’s welfare centre has seen the problem grow over the years. “At first people would come out to watch, then they began to realise that Qassams can actually kill, that they are living in a combat zone. Now people are living in constant tension, the sirens go off giving them 15 seconds to get under a shelter, this is obviously going to lead to psychological damage.

“We know this is not just one sided. We know what has happened in Gaza with the woman and her family. The suffering is on both sides, and something must be done to stop us. But we also know how long his has been going on.”

At Sderot police station a row of shelves are stacked with twisted pieces of rockets and mortars fired at the town and surrounding areas. Chief Inspector Micky Rosenfeld charts how the range of attack has increased as the Palestinian militants had enlarged their arsenal and acquired more sophisticated weapons. There have been increasing their use of Grad rockets which can now reach larger cities like Ashkelon. “The number of people now within rocket range from Gaza is around 200,000, that is obviously very worrying,” he said. “They will keep on getting more advanced weapons supplied to them and we will have to have counter measures. This thing is not going to go away.”

Sderot - the border of the Gaza strip is visible on the left of the map