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Uneasy Recovery for Southern Israel

[BBC News] Heather Sharp - Six months after her sister Irit Shitrit's death in a Palestinian rocket strike, Ayelet Modoh, 37, describes how the missile exploded as the two sisters headed home from the gym in the city of Ashdod. The siren sounded, they got out of the car, and discussed where to lie on the ground because they could not find a shelter. Then came a faint whistle, followed by a massive blast and a deadly wave of shrapnel. During the Gaza conflict, rockets fired by Hamas reached ever further into Israel - to places like Ashdod - putting hundreds of thousands more Israelis in mortal fear. Ashdod residents were not used to the frequent sirens and the few seconds to dash to a bomb shelter, which communities nearer Gaza, such as the town of Sderot, have endured for years. In Sderot, Avi Maman, 47, a fire fighter, picks at peeling paint as he wanders through the ruins of the single storey house where he grew up and raised his three children. Debris and scraps of insulation hang from the hole in the roof left by the rocket that landed on it on Dec. 30. A barrage of 50-60 rockets per week during the height of the conflict has dropped to about one a month, but even so, says Mayor David Buskila, the remaining threat means "you can't really feel it's over."
2009-07-02 06:00:00
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