Our day started very early as we were going to Sderot and we needed to get petrol for the trip. We had arranged with the Sderot Media Center to meet Ran at 9:00am, and the estimated traveling time was 1h30. So once gassed up we got on to the highway out of Jerusalem. This proved a little bit more of a challenge than expected. The traffic flow into Jerusalem was very heavy and a couple of front/rear collisions of course slowed everything down.

The drive down was uneventful and the road signs and maps we had made the trip very easily with each intersection clearly marked. Often the major junctions, (tzomet in Hebrew), were sign boarded with distance in meters.

Arriving in Sderot we called our contact Ran and he directed us to the Kibbutz Nasim were we picked him up.  He is a quietly spoken young man with a real passion for the situation as we were to find out over the next two hours. One of the first things he told was, to follow him in the event of hearing an alarm.  He took us first to an observation point overlooking the Gaza strip and showed us from where the Kazam rockets were fired.  Here he also gave us some background to the situation.

Sderot is a town of 15000 people that at its peak was approx 19000 people. It was initially populated with immigrants mainly from Africa, Sephardic Jews from Morocco, North Africa, Ethopia and Yemen. A number of Bedouin also live in the town and outlying areas.  In the surrounding areas are a number of kibbutzim growing wheat, barley and vegetables.  It is on the very edge of the Negev Desert so is only green once a year for a short time in Febuary, even now the fields only have a hint of green left, except for the vegetables which are irrigated. Sderot was once a vibrant town with a mix of traditional Jews and was for a time the music capital of alternative music in the region.

That all changed just over seven years ago when Hezboulah, Hamas and a few other Muslim extremists started manufacturing and firing home made rockets, Kazams, into the Western Negev and Sderot.  They are basically a pipe of varying lengths and diameters with a detonation mechanism in the front, with an explosive charge, a rocket motor and fins welded on to the end. The first Kazams were made with fertilizer bombs but have increased over the years with more sophisticated explosives and more powerful motors, gradually increasing the range from hundreds of meters to 5 km. The disengagement (the withdrawal of ALL Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip), was supposed to end these attacks but statistic show that they have increased. The effect is that the border is an illusion and Israelis in Sderot do not feel safe in their own area.

More than 7000 Kazams have landed in and around Sderot over this time with as many as twenty in one day, some striking the same spot more than once. Talking to some of the residents, they are determined to stay, after all were will they go?  It is their country, their town, their home. Others have left and moved elsewhere, if they can afford it, but this is not possible for many as the prices of home have plummeted as no-one wants to property in Sderot.  In and around the town bomb shelters have been erected, some are purpose-built like the bus stops, and others are made up of precast concrete blocks and culverts, but there are simply not enough for all the residents. Some of the schools only have only a certain amount of bomb proof classrooms, so when the sirens sounds the children have to run from some of the class rooms to the concrete ones.

An early warning system and observation balloons have been put in place along the border, this detects when a rocket has been fired and calculates the direction and approximate range. An alarm, Code RED,  is triggered and the residents have 15 seconds to get to a safe area. The result is a situation that switches between a “war” situation and a normal “peacetime” situation. The stress and strain has a drastic effect on the population;  adults tend to be philosophical and pragmatic but the children are being severely traumatised and this is showing up in everyday child-play as they draw mom dad their home and … a Kazam rocket!  In an attempt to “normalize” the children, Kazams even feature in the game of Monopoly!

The ordinary citizens try and continue there daily lives only wishing to live in peace and enjoy the open spaces of the countryside, like their ordinary Palestinian neighbours in Gaza who, prior to the closing of the borders, worked on the kibbutzim and in the towns.  They still share with each other news of births, death, and marriages of friend across the border.

We spoke to an optician whose business had been rocketed twice and his home once, and we saw, in his office, evidence of damage;  as well as damage to a number of houses, sidewalks and parking lots.   With a shrug of the shoulders the plea of the people is that their government would continue to try and find a solution…

We stayed for a while after leaving the media center, walking through the market, buying some amazing fruit and having a schwarma at one of the few take-away shops still operating.

On the way back to Jerusalem via a different route we stopped briefly at Beit Guvrin only to realise that it is a very large site and there was insufficient time to do it justice. The dig-for-a-day program here sounds amazing …. who knows what we may have found?

Further up the road we passed Beit Shemesh, this was the area where Samson lived and also the general area of the battle between David and Goliath. The tel has not been excavated at all, as with so many tells and site around the land of history.

Driving into Jerusalem for the second time, the navigator could have a rest as the driver knew where to go AND how to get there. This was accomplished without any drama except for discovering that returning a Eldan hire car without a full tank of petrol results in a 20% surcharge, so we chose to drive over the road and fill up ourselves.  Taking a taxi back to the studio with our cameras, fruit and cooler box was a wise choice as we had more bits and pieces in the car than we realised.

After a brief pause we took a walk into the new city to attend a church service at a Messianic congregation, King of Kings Assembly.  Rob had bought one of their CDs and wanted to see what it was like. The service was due to start at 5:00pm and when we arrived at 4:50pm the auditorium was about half full.  It quickly filled up, with people still coming in at 5:30pm, latecomers are not exclusive to Durban!  The auditorium is very modern, seating about 800 people, well equipped with lighting, monster sound desk and wide screen – multi video projectors. The seats are well designed, the back moving into an upright position when the seat is folded up, and lots of leg room between the seats.

The service started with the singing of the Shema, a traditional Hebrew prayer, and continued with a mixture of well known contemporary songs and a few Hebrew ones. After the usual hundred and one notices and a few more songs one of the pastors spoke on the two sisters Mary and Martha. His message was that we should be like Mary, always wanting to be in the presence of Yeshua.

When the service ended at 7:00pm we walked back down Yaffo Street to the studio and were amazed again at the variety of shops open and still trading. At one of the many bakeries we bought a few pastries, by now we know which one are which and what ones we like.

Tomorrow, the Judean Desert and Herodium…Day 9