Express & Star

On the Israel-Gaza border: Where home is 95 per cent paradise and 5 per cent hell

In a special report, the Express & Star presents a first-hand account of life on the Israel-Gaza border.

Published
Last updated
A fire-ravaged bus on the border

Express & Star political editor Peter Madeley has been allowed rare access to deliver an insight on what it is like to live in one of the most dangerous regions on the planet.

It’s a city where the houses have bomb shelters built into them.

For the 24,000 residents of Sderot, which sits just a mile from Israel’s turbulent border with the Gaza Strip, life exists amid waves of violence.

More than 20 civilians have been killed there in the last decade, with many more injured by mortars, rockets and missiles fired over from Gaza. Hundreds of homes have been damaged and businesses have been destroyed.

Crowds gather after an Israeli bus is hit by a rocket fired from Gaza

In the last 48 hours more than 400 rockets have been fired across the border, directed towards the small Israeli towns and cities that dot this most volatile of terrains in the Negev region.

In Sderot, there are also bomb shelters on almost every street and at the nearby Sapir College, which has been forced to temporarily close to its 8,000 students on the orders of the Israeli military.

For Zohar Avitan, 64, a manager at the college, shutting up shop is a major blow for a place he believes is central to the city’s future.

Zohar Avitan, a 64-year-old manager at Sapir College

“It’s the fourth time this year we have closed,” he told me, shaking his head, although at the height of the conflict in 2014 he says classes were cancelled for six weeks.

“In 1976 we used to dream of Sderot becoming a university city and today it is almost true,” he says. “We don’t like to close but circumstances in the last two days are beyond our control.”

The latest attacks – which Israeli officials say are deliberately targeted at civilians – have seen 10 people injured, mainly by shrapnel. Part of a bakery in the old section of the city was blown up by a rocket, a house was damaged when it was struck by a mortar shell and homes went without electricity.

Most of the attacks are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, but some sneak through to wreak havoc.

Peter Madeley stands at a road block near the Gaza border where life goes on amid waves of violence

In nearby Ashkelon, a Palestinian man who had been working in Israel was killed when a rocket hit a block of flats. Zohar has seen the misery first hand on many occasions. Last December his son’s car was blown up by a rocket outside his home, which also suffered shrapnel damage.

In April 2001 the first missile exploded inside the college. Then in 2008 tragedy struck when 35-year-old student Rony Ichia was killed by a blast that hit the college car park.

A monument bearing his name stands there to this day, and it was after his death that the bomb shelters were brought in and classrooms were fitted with reinforced ceilings.

“We don’t know when the missiles are going to fall,” Zohar says. “It makes you live your life with an unpleasant feeling.”

He said that for a long time it was a struggle to get people to come and live in Sderot. “Who wants to live in a place where missiles keep falling?” he asks.

But come they do. House prices have tripled in recent years, according to officials. There’s a sushi bar, a new football stadium and the city has its own 400-seat cinematheque.

Damage can be seen at a bakery in Sderot

Zohar turns the question on its head and asks why would people leave?

“My friends are here. This is where my house is. London was bombed in the Second World War and people stayed there. We live between hope and despair, but this is our home.”

The city’s Mayor, Alon Davidi, describes living in Sderot as ‘95 per cent heaven and five per cent hell’.

He says three of his seven children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) having grown up in a place where death is just a mortar away. But like Zohar, he is defiant in his stance towards the violence.

“I feel I am an ambassador of the free world,” he says. “I’m proud to stand here, and we stay here and develop our town.”

Mayor of Sderot Alon Davidi in the city's control centre

Inside the city’s security centre officials monitor CCTV of the world outside. The streets are quiet, and the mayor reveals they have dealt with 600 calls from residents in the previous 24 hours related to the attacks.

At the bakery that was struck by a missile, staff turned up to bake bread in an unaffected part of the building.

Zohar awaits a call from military officials to see whether he can open the college the following day.

This building is a bomb shelter

But it is far from business as usual. Outside military helicopters whirr above, Israeli ‘spy’ balloons are visible, and a short distance away approaching the Gaza border roads are blocked by heavily armed soldiers.

Near the Yad Mordechai kibbutz, we’re rushed into a bomb shelter as news comes through of a rocket heading in our direction.

The latest barrage of attacks was sparked by an incident on Sunday night when a covert Israeli special forces operation inside Gaza went wrong, killing eight including an Israeli lieutenant colonel and a leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Israeli officials have since insisted it was not a targeted assassination attempt.

A home is struck by a rocket on the Israeli side of the border

In response a bus – reportedly carrying Israeli soldiers – was hit by an anti-tank missile, prompting the Israel Defense Forces to carry out an attack against military targets belonging to Hamas.

Tensions in the region have ramped up in recent weeks following criticisms of the Israeli military’s handling of protesters on the border.

Amir Avivi, a retired Brigadier General who served for 30 years in the Israeli army – including three years as a deputy division commander in Gaza – predicts a ‘very dark’ future for Israeli-Palestinian relations while Hamas remains in power.

The 49-year-old says the two sides ‘will never connect again’ and claims Gaza will collapse within two years.

Soldiers are a common sight

“When it does, it won’t just be an Israel problem,” he warns. “They will be looking west towards Europe, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans will want to migrate to through Greece and Italy. It will quickly become everyone’s problem.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated ambition is to avoid a full scale war in the region. It is praised by officials including Mayor Davidi, but is less popular with many Israeli border residents who feel abandoned by the government.

Hila Fenton, 40, a farmer from the village of Netiv HaAsara to the north of Gaza, said: “We believe that some kind of attack or war will happen almost every single day and the Israeli government does nothing about it.

“This is a terrible war. There has been no agreement on either side over a long term ceasefire. Sometimes we feel that Hamas is the real controller in our region. They control our everyday lives and the lives of the Palestinians even more – my heart goes out to them. Israel gave up on us.”

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.