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For Israelis, Rocket Strikes Fuel Fear and Loathing

(Scotsman-UK) Ben Lynfield - As frayed Israeli residents of the border town of Sderot, on the receiving end of Palestinian rockets, waited for a solidarity visit from the president of Israel Monday, the dreaded words "red dawn" came over loudspeakers. Dozens of people rushed to a concrete wall and crouched behind it, hoping for shelter from the favored weapon of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza: the Kassam rocket. Another red dawn announcement came seconds later, but no explosion was heard. Then came the frantic dialing of mobile phones to husbands and children to check that they had not been injured. The red dawn routine has become all too familiar in Sderot, a town of 24,000 people. "Red dawn can be at one, two, five in the morning," said Yona Gabay, 57. "We have no bomb shelter so we just stay in the living room. I embrace the children and try to calm them," said Diana Yegudayev, a mother of a three-year-old girl and a boy aged four, adding: "When my daughter hears red dawn she is terrified, she begins to cry." Five people have been wounded by shrapnel here during the past two weeks and there have been five deaths from rockets over the past five years.
2006-06-21 00:00:00
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