SDEROT, Israel — When thundershowers hit most of Israel in mid-November, most people rejoiced: After five consecutive drought-ridden winters, they said that the rains signaled Divine benevolence and the start of a much-needed wet winter.
Targeted Community Approaches Anniversary of Israel’s Gaza Offensive
SDEROT, Israel — When thundershowers hit most of Israel in mid-November, most people rejoiced: After five consecutive drought-ridden winters, they said that the rains signaled Divine benevolence and the start of a much-needed wet winter.
But according to Rabbi Moshe Ze’ev Pizem, director of the Chabad-Lubavitch center in this southern border town, not everyone enjoyed the thunder. To many in and around this region encircling the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, the noise was all too reminiscent of the Kassam rocket attacks that have continually pelted their homes and communities since the fall of 2000.
Jacob Shrybman, a spokesman for the Sderot Media Center, tells of an acquaintance who spent each night of the recent storms shaking with fear and vomiting in her small apartment. It’s an extreme reaction, but not an unusual one among a population whose members display telltale symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Since 2000, we have suffered more than 10,000 rocket attacks,” says Shrybman, who like many residents, breathed a sigh of relief during last year’s Israeli offensive in Gaza – known here as Operation Cast Lead – only to see a resumption of terror attacks after the official end of hostilities.
“The ongoing trauma has forced [this woman] to repeatedly seek emergency psychiatric care for shock,” he details, “to miss countless work days, and pushed her toward a steady diet of prescription drugs to deal with the constant fear.”
