Gaza strikes intensify, frightening Israelis

By Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY | USA TODAY

KIBBUTZ KFAR AZZA, Israel – Lital Ben-Oved was helping her 8-year-old daughter, Hadar, get ready for school when her cellphone buzzed with the text message dreaded by everyone in southern Israel.

The "Red Alert" from Israel's Home Front Command warned people "to remain within 15 seconds" of a bomb shelter. She grabbed Hadar and ran to the bedroom of her three children, a safe room reinforced with concrete.

In seconds the mother and daughter heard "booms and then a huge crashing sound. The house shook as a rocket hit our roof, and we prayed for a miracle," she said.

Many in southern Israel were saying similar prayers Monday as anti-Israel terrorists in Gaza launched 10 more rockets at neighborhoods by mid-day. The Israeli Defense Forces said more than 110 rockets had hit Israel since Saturday.

Israel has struck targets from the air in the past two days and on Monday warned the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza and is designated a terrorist entity by the USA and European Union, that it will strike with "ever-growing intensity" if the attacks do not cease.

"Hamas is responsible for the rocket fire and all other attempts to harm our soldiers and civilians, even when other groups participate. And it is Hamas that will pay the heavy price," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

The rockets, coupled with a mortar attack Monday into Israel from Syria to the north, threatens to spark a major conflict in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a ground offensive by Israel may be inevitable if Hamas is not stopped.

"The world must understand that Israel will not sit idly in the face of attempts to attack us," Netanyahu said Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday that Israeli tanks scored "direct hits" on targets in Syria in response to mortar fire that landed in an open area in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli military officials said "Syrian mobile artillery" was hit.

The mortar attack was the second in as many days.

Ben-Oved, 33, and others here say such hostilities could possibly be avoided if Arab and Western states condemn strongly and sanction Hamas.The Gaza government is targeting civilians, families and children, in the recognized borders of Israel, she points out.

"Are Jewish lives less important than Palestinian lives? Where are the U.N. resolutions?" she asked heatedly.

No one died in the recent barrage into Israel of the Kassam rockets, homemade projectiles that have no guidance systems, though there have been numerous victims over the years. The good fortune is largely due to the red-alert system that goes to 1 million Israelis and the war-footing that everyone is on in southern Israel, like those in this small community two miles east of the Gaza border.

Raw: Israeli tanks fire into Syria The Israeli military says it has scored "direct hits" on targets in Syria after responding to stray mortar fire from its northern neighbor. (Nov. 12)

The rocket attacks make life in a large swath of the south a constant worry, and that is the intent. People are on edge as they await the next alert, which forces the shutdown of schools and businesses and interrupts sleep. In many border towns the alerts are accompanied by jarring public air-raid sirens.

On Saturday, Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli patrol along the Gaza Strip border fence, wounding four soldiers. The IDF responded with tank shells and airstrikes into Gaza, including a hit on a rocket-launching squad. Hamas' military wing and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood whose political party dominated parliamentary elections in Egypt, took over Gaza after using violence in 2007 to force out the Palestinian political party Fatah, which controls the West Bank. Its stated goal is the destruction of Israel.

From 2006 through 2008, Palestinians in Gaza fired more than 8,000 rockets into Israel. In December 2008, Israel attacked with ground forces. More than 1,000 Palestinians were killed, mostly militants, according to the IDF and Hamas' Interior Ministry. Civilians were killed as Hamas fighters used hospitals and mosques in residential neighborhoods as attack positions.

Hamas "is torn between being an Islamist jihadist movement, a political organization and a government, (and) is feeling more emboldened," said Meir Litvak, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Tel Aviv University.

Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak, "who wanted Israel to crush Hamas," was ousted during the Arab Spring popular uprising and replaced by Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist and former leader in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas is attacking Israel now because it needs to re-establish its credibility as a jihadist group both with radical Islamist groups and the powerful Iranian leadership that provides it assistance, Litvak said.

Litvak and others speculate that Hamas wants to somehow affect Israeli elections taking place Jan. 22. Residents of southern Israel say Netanyahu doesn't deserve to be re-elected if he allows Gaza militants to wage war against their communities.

"We live in fear and our businesses suffer when the rockets fall," said Natan Itzhakof, who owns a small restaurant in the town of Sderot, a short drive from Kfar Aza.

Itzhakof said his daughter, who is 7, has been deeply traumatized by the rocket fire.

"When she was 9 months old a rocket landed about 30 meters away from us. She became incredibly clingy and anxious," he said. "She sees a psychologist."

Adriana Katz, director of the Sderot Regional Mental Health Center, deals with many of the 5,000 locals being treated for shock and other resulting issues.

"When things are bad, as they are now, we see many children, including older children, wetting their beds and insisting on sleeping with their parents," the doctor said. "People are fearful of being outside, away from a shelter, when the red alert comes."

Today almost every apartment in Sderot has a government-subsidized bomb shelter; squat shelters, painted by local artists, also stand alongside playgrounds and bus stops. But homes in many other towns and cities now within rocket range lack in-home bomb shelters and the government hasn't been able to keep up with the demand.

Despite the fear and casualties caused by Hamas' assaults, Rachel Bouchbout said she and her family have no intention of leaving.

"We own a home in Sderot, but it's more than that," said the mother of two, who moved to the town because of her husband's studies. "The people here are the warmest we've ever known. The community is wonderful, but now that I'm a mother and have responsibility for my kids, it's admittedly more complicated."

Having her hair and makeup done at a Sderot bridal salon, Ina Krysberberg, whose wedding was to take place in just a few hours, admitted she was worried that rockets might fall nearby and mar her special day.

"We could get married elsewhere but this is where I'm from and our families are here. We didn't want to give into the fear."

Back at Kfar Aza during a short-lived cease-fire, a group of kibbutz children play on a rocket-scarred soccer field in plain sight of the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun. Others enjoy the playground or rolled on the lawns.

Reut Gelzer, who was raised on the kibbutz but lived in Tel Aviv before moving back, said she and her partner, Iman Safada, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, moved here "because I want to raise my children in my home, with my parents close by. I know it's ironic, but the familiarity helps me feel very secure here."

Safada, an Arab living among Jews being targeted by Arabs, believes that most people on both sides want to live in peace.

The problem, he said, is that "there are people who profit financially from war and they're the ones who keep the conflict going."

Lital Ben-Oved, whose house is temporarily uninhabitable because of the rocket attack in late October, can no longer bear the conflict, regardless of its source.

"All we want is a quiet, normal life, not living in fear," she said. "We'd move to abroad if could, for a while."

Moving further away in Israel wouldn't make a difference, Ben-Oved said.

"You can move to Tel Aviv but with the Iranian nuclear threat, everywhere is the front line," she said.

Contributing: The Associated Press