Targeted Israeli Town Wants Mission Accomplished

by Douglas Hamilton
Reuters UK
January 12, 2009

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/656/targeted-israeli-town-wants-mission-accomplished

The message to Israeli leaders Monday from this little community in the firing line of Hamas rockets from Gaza was: keep it up.

"We feel good after years of disappointment. The general mood in Sderot is that people are very, very satisfied," said town information officer Shalom Halevy.

Sderot, a town of 24,000, has been targeted daily since Israel began its offensive on Islamist militants in Gaza on December 27. But it was hit by sporadic rocket attacks for eight years before the government took action, he said.

"People here would be prepared to wait two to three months more if that's what it takes to finish this operation."

"We hope they will finish it. Fewer rockets is not enough. It has to stop totally," he said.

The offensive has killed 900 Palestinians, about 40 percent of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

Israeli forces were still holding back from a threatened third stage of their deadliest assault on Palestinian militants in decades -- a push into the city of Gaza and other urban areas to add more punch to an air campaign and ground offensive.

Gaza's fighters may be hunkered down and their rate of rocket attacks on southern Israel is slowly dropping. But it is not stopping.

HOMEMADE MISSILES

Monday shortly after Halevy spoke to Reuters, two rockets exploded in Sderot and one house took a direct hit from one of the homemade missiles that Israelis call Qassams.

At about the same time, a house in the seaside city of Ashkelon was struck by a longer-range Katyusha type rocket.

There were no casualties, apart from people who needed treatment for shock.

Halevy said he was sorry for the great loss of life in Gaza. But like most people in his town, he said, he believes the Palestinians are victims of Islamic fundamentalist "terrorists" who use them ruthlessly.

"This is the wisdom of Hamas. Their leader sits in safety in Damascus. He is very free with the blood of his brothers."

Official Israeli figures list 10 people killed by Gaza rockets that have hit Sderot since 2000.

"About 3,500 people have left town in the past two years to get away from this danger," he said.

The town is peppered with little concrete bunkers, hardened bomb shelters next to every bus stop.

"We'd be delighted to get rid of those," said Halevy. "We'd like to take them away for good and get back to a regular life."

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