Family members of Tahel el-Harar were wounded by a Kassam during their Friday night dinner.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
When 14-year-old Tahel el-Harar left his 10th-grade classroom for the weekend, he most likely never imagined that two days later, he would be trading words with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
But the Sderot high school student, instead of going with his classmates on a field trip to see the snow on Mt. Hermon, spent Sunday morning as the guest of Public Security Minister Avi Dichter at the weekly cabinet meeting.
On Friday evening, a Kassam rocket launched from the Gaza Strip smashed through the roof of el-Harar's grandfather's house as family members gathered for Friday night dinner. Four people - including el-Harar's mother - were hospitalized for shock after the rocket exploded in a second-floor room, one floor above where the family members sat.
Dichter visited el-Harar's grandfather, Rafi Peretz, during his Saturday visit to assess the situation in Sderot. It was there that he met Tahel, who told the minister that although he was supposed to go on the long-anticipated annual school field trip, he did not want to go because he was afraid to leave his traumatized family in the beleaguered town.
Dichter, moved by the boy's comments, invited the boy to join him as his personal guest at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday in Jerusalem.
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