• Statistics of Kassam rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip

Total rocket attacks:

Since the first rocket fell on Israel on 16 April 2001: 4,067
Since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005: 3,484
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007: 2,046
Last year (2008): 1,571

Mortar bomb hits since April 2001: 4,183


Here are my thoughts. Imagine a person stood next to you and continuously poked you every day for 8 years. How would that make you feel? Imagine you kept telling them to stop but they kept doing it, should you be able to react? This is a horrible comparison, now change this to, imgaine someone was shooting rockets into your back yard for 8 years. Three to ten times a day a siren goes off and y ou have to run to a bomb sheltor, or all of your children, including you suffer from post tramatic stress syndrome. Not only that but now your children have to go to school in the bomb sheltor, how would that make you feel?

It has been three weeks since the war in the south started. With a cease fire declared, hamas still continues to shoot rockets into Israel. The question i'm continuously asked is , "What do you think about the War in Gaza" or what they also tried to call it "the operation." Luckily i moved out of Be'er Sheva a couple weeks before everything started, but why did the idea of rockets hitting there still make me feel very unsettled and terrified. After three months living somewhere you make connections, and the people being affected begin to have faces, emotions and life. I beleive that Israel made the right decision to finally stand up for themselves, and let Hamas know that rocket fire across the border is unacceptable. As a country, and a nation, they have the right to live in peace. At the same time, a lot of suffering occured in Gaza and it shouldn't be ignored. Was the suffering because of Israel or is it because Hamas leaders were letting their citizens suffer. All the blame shouldn't be put on israel because it shouldn't be forgotten that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Being here during all this I think has given me a perspective that i never would have had otherwise. I have never lived in a country at war before, but from every experience you learn and grow and begin to understand the world a little bit better. When everything started I was in Istanbul with three friends. Before I even knew, Dana and I stood and watched a protest in the middle of Taxim Square but with everything in Turkish we didn't know what it was about. When we went back to our hostel we asked the hostel manager what the protest was about. In his words, "Crazy Israel, killed 160 children." and the protest was people protesting against israel. Later i found out this was not true, but i was horrified. I kept thinking to myself, how could israel do that. Even to find out that the guy had be mistaken did not make me feel less unsettled. Why? Purely because he had such a distorted view of what happened. For three weeks after that i began to learn how effective the media is at not giving all the news and only telling part of a story. If Hamas had anything, they had the ability to use the media to their advantage. All i was hoping that somehow people could hear the real story, understand the reasons behind the IDF's deployment into Gaza. Instead what i saw was protests across the world against Israel and a rise of anti semitism.

I hope that everything really does begin to calm down but I am happy that i am here still. A lot of people wanted to know if i was staying, but it would have been ridiculous for me to go home. In the States i would have felt disconnected to the war and i would have not had the chance to talk with israeli citizens about their feelings and their opinions. It is experiences like that , that i think has shaped my perspective, and see as this a really crucial aspect of my life.