A 'Rocket Graveyard'
Dealing With Attacks In Southern Israel

by Suzi Brozman
Atlanta Jewish Times
July 11, 2008

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/261/a-rocket-graveyard

In southern Israel the first line of defense is the responsibility of a group of sharp-eyed young women. I learned this on a recent media fact-finding trip to that embattled part of the Jewish state.

In a whirlwind three-day visit to Sderot and Ashkelon, names familiar to the world as the areas subjected to attacks from Gaza, our group of eight American journalists met with mayors, police chiefs, emergency workers and others charged with protecting residents and coming to their aid and rescue after attacks, but no other part of our tour was as impressive as the time we spent at the Nahal Oz Military Base.

Leaving our hotel on the Mediterranean in Ashkelon, our bus traveled along the border. Seeing Gaza City in the distance and the border within spitting distance, we realized that not only are Israeli farmers in their kibbutz fields well within sniper range, but Sderot is just four miles away and Ashkelon eight miles, putting some 120,000 Israelis within easy range of Palestinian rockets.

Nahal Oz is the Israel Defense Forces' Northern Brigade headquarters. It was built inside Gaza, but was moved to its present location less than three years ago. It's a temporary base that will eventually move farther south.

Surrounded by enemies, Israel cannot afford to relax its vigilance for an instant. For that reason, every inch of the border with Gaza is under constant scrutiny, both live and on camera. At the base, a command room filled with computer monitors is staffed by young women, members of the IDF. Each monitor scans a particular area of the terrain separating Israelis and Gazans, showing pictures broadcast from a network of cameras stationed along the borders trying to detect every movement, every possible terror attempt.

To that end, each soldier has an assigned region that she monitors daily. Females are the preferred watchers, since experience has shown they have better powers of concentration than their male counterparts, though there are occasionally men assigned to this duty.

For a four-hour shift, the soldiers must keep their eyes focused on the monitor. If they need a break, another takes over. They have to be able to distinguish between benign activity like Bedouins herding livestock, and dangerous movements like someone attempting to cross the border.

The cameras are thermal, able to identify night movements. They can be controlled from the command post. A main challenge is fog, which renders the cameras blind. Terrorists know this and plan accordingly. When the cameras are ineffective, the soldiers depend on radar, which works on sound. The young women can identify people and animals by their sound.

They have direct communication with field troops, who rely heavily on the mostly 18- to 20-year-old women.

The process is not foolproof, but it is effective. We were shown tapes of incidents where terrorists were caught trying to cross the border. We also saw times when they weren't stopped. Botched incidents are studied carefully to learn how to recognize the next attempt.

A commanding officer briefed us on the situation. Twenty settlements are in the area. The 12 nearest the fence are the least secure. Two weeks before our visit a major truck bomb reached settlements inside Israel. The officer warned us that Hamas has been strengthening its positions and issuing more dangerous, upgraded threats in recent days. Missiles, he said, are the main threat now, and they are harder to deal with than terrorists whose movements are easier to follow, though there are daily attempts to cross the border fence, and there are nightly sniper attacks. Terrorists try to cross on the ground by cutting the fence or underground through tunnels. This is how Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped.

He explained there are two groups of rockets - Kassams and mortars. The mortars are more limited. Anti-tank missiles have been upgraded recently and constant communication between the Army and civilians is necessary.

Despite news reports, there is a constant humanitarian connection between Gaza and Israel, though not always through the government. Fuel and supplies flow, and the sick can move most of the time through checkpoints. A special IDF unit is responsible for these activities.

Another weapon in the IDF's arsenal is the unmanned blimps that float quietly across the skies near the border, patrolling the ground and seeking incoming rockets and missiles.

Weighing the options

We passed a field near the base where a cluster of police and IDF operatives were searching for the remains of a Kassam that had just fallen. It was sobering to realize that our bus had driven within a few feet of the site on our way into the base. This, of course, was before we spent the night at Kibbutz Nahal Oz and learned what it's really like to live with the constant threat of attack (see "Rockets' Red Glare," June 27, at www.jtonline.us).

In Ashkelon, we heard Nachman Shai, a United Jewish Communities Israel official, talk about options. What can Israel negotiate? Shalit's release? The Golan Heights? Talk with Syria? Talk with Hezbollah? How, he asked, can Israel turn down any opportunity to talk?

He asserted that Iran is behind everything in this conflict - Hamas, Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq, and that Iran is the most dangerous enemy Israel has ever had, too far to reach easily but close enough to make Israel a target for missiles. He said he doesn't know how to deal with Iran, a sentiment we were to hear repeatedly the next several days. He did feel that decisions about Iran will be determined by the strength or weakness of Israel's prime minister. Since the pullback from Gaza, which he now sees as controversial, Israel has been disappointed in the results that have led to continuing attacks by 3,000 to 4,000 rockets and the threat of more Kassams and the longer range Grads which Israel has not faced before.

Ashkelon the city

Ashkelon is a new target. The city, we were told by its deputy mayor, is one of the world's oldest, more than 3,500 years old, and the home of Samson and Delilah. It once was an Arab village with no Jews. By 2000, more than 20,000 Jews, mostly Russian immigrants, had settled here. It's close to the size of Tel Aviv. The worry is that people won't stay and the city will collapse, with children going away to school and tourism falling off. The value of apartments has already begun to decline, and no visitors made reservations for Passover, usually a busy time for the city. Hotel reservations are down 60 percent. Ashkelon's education system is larger than all the population of Sderot.

Asked what help Ashkelon is receiving, he said that UJC gave funds, as did the government, but money and help aren't the primary need, which is for the government to stop the shooting.

A terrorism expert told us that in Sderot, eight people have been killed and 40 injured by rockets, not close to what a suicide bomber can do. He feels Israel will not respond in Gaza unless there's a strategic Kassam attack - a rocket that falls on a synagogue or kindergarten for instance, and kills 10 or more people. Until Israel has a casus belli (justification for war), no one in the world will understand an Israeli attack.

Dealing with the crisis

After seeing the Sderot devastation, both to property and to people's lives, Ashkelon was almost a relief. We were looking at a city in crisis, but one that was dealing with it. We visited the Underground Command and Control Center. When an attack occurs, all the relevant officials gather there to analyze the situation and respond. We saw maps of the probability of rockets in each part of town, plans for emergency reactions and more. Outside the nearby police station was the "rocket graveyard," metal shelving filled with the remains of every rocket to hit the area. In a macabre touch, each rocket was labeled with the date of its arrival.

Down the street, a trauma center offers physically intact victims a place to retreat to, where psychiatrists and staff can give help and offer a sense of safety. At a nearby kindergarten, we saw a rocket's crater in the garden where children play.

Back in Sderot, we heard from Eli Carmeli, manager of the Victims of Terror Fund, which provides financial assistance to those affected by terror attacks. With funding from the UJC, they give money for immediate needs, especially humanitarian needs not met by other sources. The group helped wounded soldiers after the Lebanon War with financial grants for rent, studies, equipment and more.

They set up a unique fund for Sderot, rushing funds to victims within 24 hours of an attack. The usual grant is about $1,000 per injured person. Some six months ago, when 40 to 50 missiles arrived in one day, people needed urgent help so the fund worked to get money for food, clothes and shelter to victims within 48 hours. Thanks to the Jewish Agency for Israel, people get funds to help them until they can take back control of their lives.

But it's not just physical needs that must be met. Every individual meets trauma with a different reaction. Lavi is a student at Sapir College, majoring in film. He was just out of the shower when the rocket hit his house.

He told us, "I love my life, my house. It is destroyed. The energy is changed. Art is a good way to express myself." He said that people are mentally dead, living from day to day. Many of his friends are leaving, moving elsewhere. "My body responds differently from how I want. I used to hear the alarm and think about whether to get up. Now it's automatic. I'm angry. It's bigger than us. There is no solution, no one exactly to blame. I'd like to kill everyone in Gaza, but they have problems, too. It's not a one-way solution. Civilians live there as well as terrorists; it's delicate."

He knows Arabs, but no longer calls them friends. He believes there will be war before the rockets stop, and eventually a bigger war all over the country with Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran.

A year ago, Lavi took 50 Kassams to Tel Aviv and mounted an exhibit. The media came. It was the first time people in that part of Israel had seen Kassams. "When I came here, I didn't know what was going on. When I learned, I wanted others to know, too. So I did the exhibit. The school didn't like it, but they backed me. I made it look like the rockets hit Tel Aviv. You can stay numb, but one day it will come to you. I want solidarity. Come here; realize that while you are sitting in your house, people 45 minutes away are running in the streets. Now on weekends people come, buses full from Tel Aviv. People are doing much more than the government."

Source: jtonline

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