Saturday, December 8, 2007

LIVING IN SDEROT

Another Day, Another Palestinian Bombardment of Israel - Tobias Buck
The small Israeli town of Sderot is enveloping itself in a blanket of concrete. Schools and nurseries crouch below hulking canopies, dozens of bomb-shelters dot the urban landscape and even the bulletproof windows of one school have been provided with thick overhanging slabs. The town's open-air bus stops are being replaced with concrete cubicles. The profusion of concrete is a determined, but ultimately futile, attempt to shield Sderot's 20,000 citizens from the Kassam rockets that are fired into the town every day by Palestinian militants from Gaza.

"It's like Russian roulette. If it's your day you are finished," says Tiger Avraham, the head of the local paramedic team. "Children don't go outside and you cannot walk far from home. It's hard to live like this." Israel's military planners are tormented by the thought of a rocket blowing up a Sderot school bus or inflicting a large number of civilian deaths through a direct hit. (Financial Times-UK)

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