The Children and Missiles of Sderot

Palestinians have fired more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza into the Israeli city of Sderot so far this year; and more than 1,300 rockets since August 2005 (when the last Jew left Gaza); and more than 3,500 since 2000 (when the Palestinians began a new war after being offered a state).

Every one of the rockets was intended to kill civilians.  In fact, the rockets are intended to kill children (and they have), because the rockets are frequently fired early in the morning, when kids are going to school, or are fired at other times at the schools themselves.  The kids refer to those mornings as “Red Dawn.”  

The teachers in Sderot have tried to help the children cope through art.  Here is a picture of “Red Dawn” by Karin Hori, a fifth grader at the Science Orthodox School in Sderot.  The caption written on it is “My heart is sad and broken always.  I feel a ‘Red Dawn’ deep, deep in my heart.”

On August 2, 2006 Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple led a solidarity mission to Sderot, accompanied by Los Angeles City Councilmember Jack Weiss, Jewish Federation President John Fischel, a group of congregants numbering close to 50, and a couple of bloggers (one of them pretty prominent). The group visited the Science Orthodox School, listened to the children and their teachers, and viewed their heartbreaking art, including Karin Hori’s.

Councilmember Weiss personally carried home the drawings and had them framed, and yesterday morning they were exhibited in the City Hall Rotunda of Los Angeles, with a presentation by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, before a crowd that included a representative of the Israeli consulate, representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs, Sinai Temple, the Consul Generals of France (Philippe Larrieu) and Germany (Christian Stocks), and the public. 

Mayor Villaraigosa said that the pictures are:

a story of pain and heartache, but also a story of resolve.  In the conversation that I [just] had with Mayor Moyal [of Sderot], they expect, actually, much worse in the coming weeks and months than what they have gone through in the last six years.  But these are people that are resolved, resolved that they will continue to live . . . they will not be deterred, because their cause is righteous . . . .

Sderot today is what Berlin was in 1961, forty-five years ago:  a test of will on the frontline of a new world conflict, emblematic of the competing values at stake.  We are all citizens of Sderot, and these are our children.

Comments

[Yael]

Tremendous post. Thank you.

[Marty M.]

Congratulations on a magnificent post. I relived those very emotional moments in Sderot this past summer. What do we have to do to get this onto page one of the L.A.Times? Cheers to Mayor Villaraigosa!

[Brewer]

122 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 836 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.

“The majority of these [Palestinian] children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers.”

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

[RR]

Carolynne Wheeler, Special to the Globe and Mail, “Israelis Wait to Tell Stories of Terror” -- posted November 21, 2006 (link below):

. . . Parents tell stories of children refusing to sleep in their beds and wetting themselves. Seven-year-olds talk about wanting to go to hotels in Jerusalem or the Dead Sea, or of wanting to move to Australia.

Those who remain have the services of a psychologist, but even here, the school is short staffed. There are two openings for full-time psychologists in Sderot schools, but, Ms. Pima says, no one wants to move here to work within rocket range. . . .
[C]hildren have been asking for teacher escorts to the bathroom. They are afraid an alarm will sound while they're in the hallway.

"People say another Qassam, not many killed, not many injured," Ms. Pima said. "People don't realize what's going on here, really. Even my friends in Ashkelon, they don't really understand."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061121.MIDEASTSDEROT21/TPStory/TPInternational/Africa/

[RR]

Boker tov, Boulder! has today’s reports from Arutz Sheva, in chronological order beginning at 7:49 this morning Israeli time, with the first rocket attack on Sderot:

“Kassam rockets have landed in Sderot, with at least one striking a school. Ambulances are responding . . . It is clear to all that had the rocket landed some 30 minutes later, the outcome would have been different since pupils would have been on their way to classes.”

http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2006/11/rocket_fire_wha.html

[Brewer]

It is not difficult to understand the confusion of well meaning Israel supporters. The media bias is extraordinary:

“During the conflict Palestinian children have consistently made up a disproportionately large number of Palestinian deaths. In this first year children’s deaths accounted for 24% of the Palestinians killed, while children’s deaths accounted for 17% of Israelis killed.
During this time, ABC reported on 56 Israeli children’s deaths (including repetitions in later newscasts) and 19 Palestinian children’s deaths – 200% of Israeli children and 15% of Palestinian children, a ratio of 13.8 to 1.
CBS reported on 37 Israeli children’s deaths (including repetitions) and 27 Palestinian children’s deaths – 132% of Israeli children’s deaths and 21% of Palestinian children’s deaths, a ratio of 6.4 to 1.
NBC reported on 45 Israeli children’s deaths (including repetitions) and 17 Palestinian children’s deaths – 161% of Israeli children and 13% of Palestinian children’s deaths, a ratio of 12.4 to 1.

Collectively, the networks reported on an average of 46 Israeli children’s deaths – 164% of the Israeli children killed – and 21 Palestinian children’s deaths – 16% of the Palestinian children killed. In other words, the networks reported on Israeli children’s deaths at a rate 10.2 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths.
To understand the pattern of network news coverage of children’s deaths, it is useful to compare the number of deaths reported to the actual number that took place. While repeated coverage of Israeli children’s deaths creates an impression of a higher number of Israeli victims than there actually were, omissions of the majority of Palestinian children’s deaths considerably under-represents the number of Palestinian child victims.
Comparing the day-by-day reporting of children’s deaths to the actual daily death toll reveals an additional dimension of the distortion. In this comparison, we discover that the reports on Palestinian children’s deaths followed the curve for Israeli children’s deaths, rather than the much steeper curve of their actual death count.
This finding underscores the tendency by all three networks to report a fictional situation in which Israeli and Palestinian deaths occur at more or less the same rate, and illustrates the substantial gap between the reality of Palestinian fatalities and the coverage of them. It suggests that the desire to appear ‘balanced’ is too often prioritized above the need for accuracy.”

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html

When we consider that the Palestinian children are being killed by a highly organized military force that purports to target militants only and that the Israeli children are killed by random attacks by homemade rockets, the statistics take on a sinister note.

www.brewerstroupe.blogspot.com

[M. Simon]

Well the Palestinians use children as human shields.

Here is a picture:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/07/human-shields.html

[M. Simon]

If the media was really balanced we would see a lot more reporting of the human shield tactic.

[RR]

Another essential post at Boker tov, Boulder! on the citizens of Sderot as the "New Settlers." Don't miss it:

http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2006/11/israels_sitting.html

[Brewer]

20 July 2006: Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields in Beit Hanun
B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield.

http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/20060720_Human_Shields_in_Beit_Hanun.asp

Three-year-old Palestinian girl shot and killed by Israeli sniper in Deir al-Balah
26 January 2005

This morning a three-year-old girl named Rahma Abu Shamas was killed by a single bullet to the head as Israeli snipers opened fire randomly on civilians in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The shots were fired from an observation tower located in the illegal Israeli settlement of Tel Katifa. Three more Palestinian civilians were injured, one critically, according to medical sources.

Israel violates ceasefire again:
Ten-year-old girl shot in the head by Israeli fire at a Rafah school
January 31, 2005

Today a ten-year-old girl named Nouran Iyad Dib was shot in the head and killed by an Israel sniper during recess at her school in Rafah. The bullet apparently came from an Israeli military post on the Gaza/Egypt border.

A UN spokesperson said this was the fifth time a Palestinian student has been shot by Israeli troops while attending school.

Salah Ad-Din Abu Iqab, 13, from Tubas city near Jenin, was killed Thursday, 20 January, the first day of the Eid. He was playing with other children in the streets when Israeli Jeeps passed and began shooting at the children.
He was killed with live bullets in his back as he tried to flee. He was buried in his new holiday clothes and shoes.

Salah Abdul-Fattah Abu Laish, also 13, was killed in Rafah on the same day.
He was on his way to visit relatives with his father when an Israeli sniper from a post on the Egyptian-Palestinian border shot and killed him with heavy ammunition: two live bullets in the neck and chest. When people tried to help him, the sniper shot at them

Israeli anti-personnel shells, which throw out thousands of metal darts in a deadly cloud that rips apart everything it encounters, killed seven children between the ages of ten and 17 in a strawberry field in northern Gaza yesterday. Dr. Mohamed Sultan of the Beit Lahiya hospital said eleven were also wounded, four critically. Two of the survivors had double leg amputations, another a single leg amputation.

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/Jan_05_archive.htm