Almost every day, Palestinians fire Qassam rockets out of the Gaza Strip and into Sderot. Why? Good question. The Pals there are no longer under foreign occupation. So what's the deal?
The answer to that question is for another blog entry (although most of you probably know what I think: that Hamas, which runs Gaza and encourages these kinds of rocket attacks, obviously doesn't just want just Gaza...)
Anywho, the people in Sderot are obviously scared/annoyed/pissed/frustrated/depressed because of the Qassams and the Israeli government's refusal to do more to protect them. So, a bunch of students from different universities across Israel went to Sderot a few weeks ago to help boost the morale by helping clean up the neighborhoods, re-build fences, and paint rocket shelters.
When we heard about the trip, me and my friend Jason decided to take a break from being intellectual titans at Hebrew University and rolled up our sleeves, opened our hearts, and rolled to Sderot. Here are some pics of the 2 days we spent there:
So this is what terrorism looks like: The police station in
Sderot, where they keep, label, and document every Qassam
rocket that falls in the city. There were literally hundreds
of these things in the police station parking lot.
Rusty Qassams. Can you imagine these things hitting your
house every other day? Or how about the preschool
where your little brothers or sisters are going every morning?
What would you do? How would you feel?
More rusty Qassams. As you can see this is a "fresh" one,
dated July 26, 2007.
Me, Jason, and Esti, our new volunteering friend.
There are Qassam bunkers scattered all around the city
(although not enough). But until we got there, many
of them were just slabs of ugly concrete. The rationale is
simple: If they have to exist, they may as well be painted.
Sderot kids giving a hand. Ha, get it? Hand? No? Ok moving on...
DaVinci and Van Gogh hard at work on one of the shelters.
THAT'S better...
More random painting. I don't know this
dude, but I find it peculiar that he's wearing
a hat and no shirt.
Cleaning sh*t up.
Me and my friend Carmen chillin in a succah during a break
from cleaning.
So I must say, it felt great to help out. Clearly, we didn't change the world, but hopefully some of the people in Sderot realized that they're not totally alone. The Israeli government may forget about these people, but not everyone has.
It's of course hard to describe the feeling of revulsion when you're standing face to face with hundreds of used instruments of death, like what I saw at the Sderot police station. Those Qassams I was looking at had killed children on purpose.
And people wonder why I get mad...
-E
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