Hamas continued to fire Kassam rockets into Sderot, hitting the front yard of a
family’s house on Tuesday and shattering its windows.
Shiran Buhbut told
The Jerusalem Post that she “felt the entire house shake and saw the lights
blinking.”
She managed to seek safety in the home’s concrete shelter and
suffered no physical injuries.
The rocket smashed into the concrete in
the front yard, causing a gaping hole and destroying statues in front of the
house. It sent shrapnel flying into the front door, and the intensity of the
explosion caused the house’s windows to shatter. Couches in the living room were
punctuated with broken glass.
Buhbut was visiting her sister Pnina, who
lives in the house with her husband and two small children, ages seven and
one-and-a-half.
She told the Post that “this situation is not new,”
adding, “We have lived this [a life of rocket attacks] for 12 years.”
As
she showed the Post the damage to her house, the city’s sirens went off, and the
family, along with this reporter, ran into the shelter in the back of the house.
The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted the rocket, according to a
security expert in the area.
“Every day there is a Kassam from Gaza,”
said Pnina.
“All the children live in trauma.”
Since Operation
Pillar of Defense started last week, the four family members have slept in the
small shelter room.
“Hamas is terrorism, and not a government,” Pnina
asserted.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch appeared at the
Buhbut house to inspect the damage and talk with the residents.
Maksim
Buhbut, Pnina and Shiran’s Moroccan-born father, told Aharonovitch, “We have
only one country in the world. The Arabs have 22. We love Israel and we hope to
stay in Sderot.”
The minister listened and nodded his head, and said,
“Very good.”
Speaking during an appearance in Sderot, Deputy Minister for
the Development of the Negev Ayoub Kara told the Post that Israel must “cut the
leadership of Hamas” because the Hamas movement wanted to kill
everyone.
He stressed repeatedly the importance of knocking out the Hamas
decision-makers.
“I know the mentality in the Middle East,” he said,
explaining that one had to come from a position of strength and power to deal
with organizations like Hamas.
Former Sderot mayor Eli Moyal told the
Post that it was not a question of Hamas’s rocket arsenal, but of the group’s
motivation to continue launching rockets.
He said Hamas had “to pay a
high, high price” for the attacks.
Asked what price, he said, “What we
are now doing, killing [Hamas] commanders.”
A group of young Sderot
residents marched in front of the police station with Israeli flags, singing
that “the people of Israel are alive.” Police officials at the station showed
the Post the Kassam rocket launched on Monday.
Pnina, echoing her
father’s sentiments, stated that “after the Shoah, we don’t have any place to
go. In Europe, the Germans killed us. The Arabs have 22 countries.”
She
stressed that the world needed to know what the residents were experiencing
because of Hamas terrorism.