Today we went to Sderot, which is right on the border between Israel and Gaza. Sderot is located in something called the 15 second zone, meaning that once the red alert alarm sounds indicating a rocket
has been fired from Gaza, you have 15 seconds before either the rocket is shot down by the iron dome or the rocket touches ground. Due to Sderot’s very close proximity to Gaza, it is the target of many attacks. Therefore residential buildings for the most part have bomb shelters, and there are bomb shelters in many public places as well such as bus stops and playgrounds.
The relationship between Gaza and Israel is complex. To begin with, there are questions of how people view Gaza – part of Israel or not? Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a terrorist organization. However not every person in Gaza is a member of Hamas or supports them. This makes it difficult for a military cleansing of Hamas. Also, all electricity and water for Gaza is provided completely by Israel. Israel provides these yet has no political representation whatsoever in the Gaza Strip.
But now, back to us in Sderot today. It was hot, yet very cool to be able to look out and see Gaza. We tried to understand how the threat of rockets affected the area. For instance I think children are very hard to control and trying to get children into bomb shelters in 15 seconds would usually be near impossible. But the people of Sderot are determined to make their city safe and friendly. Therefore, they created a bomb shelter that looks like a worm in the children’s playground so that they don’t have to stop playing to be safe. This was an overall good experience and I’m glad that I got to do it!