L'espérance déçue des Palestiniens de Gaza, traqués par la police égyptienne à Al-Arich

Michel Bôle-Richard, AL-ARICH (Egypte) ENVOYÉ SPÉCIAL, Le Monde, 30.1.07. "Même dans les boulangeries, on refuse de nous vendre du pain. Les Egyptiens veulent nous étrangler après que les Israéliens ont voulu nous étouffer."La chasse aux Palestiniens a commencé dans les rues du centre d'Al-Arich, cité balnéaire égyptienne. Dans le souk et les rues adjacentes, des forces de police en uniforme et en civil contrôlaient les identités et poursuivaient, lundi 28 janvier, les habitants de la bande de Gaza qui erraient en quête de nourriture et de logement depuis l'ouverture par la force de la frontière, le 23 janvier. Tous ont été embarqués dans des cars et des minibus pour être réexpédiés à la frontière. Difficile d'échapper aux rafles tant la présence policière est importante.

La plupart des magasins ont été fermés sur ordre des autorités afin d'essayer de tarir le flot continu de Palestiniens venus faire leurs emplettes. Les jerrycans sont interdits, et les pompistes sont passibles d'amende s'ils outrepassent les ordres de ne pas servir les Palestiniens.

Même les marchandises ne parviennent plus dans ce cul-de-sac du Sinaï, car elles sont bloquées à Ismaïlia par décision des autorités égyptiennes, afin de tenter de stopper l'exode d'un peuple aspirant à un peu d'oxygène et de denrées dont il est privé par le blocus israélien. Des ordres ont été donnés de ne pas loger ceux qui se retrouvent une nouvelle fois comme des réfugiés. Ils dorment où ils peuvent et tentent d'échapper aux forces de sécurité en se cachant. Certains font état de passages à tabac. "Les habitants nous reprochent d'avoir fait monter les prix et d'avoir provoqué une pénurie, mais nous n'y sommes pour rien, protestent des Palestiniens exaspérés. Nous ne voulons que nous ravitailler. Les commerçants n'ont pas à se plaindre. Ce n'est pas une invasion !"

Al-Arich, porte de l'espoir, est devenue le cimetière des illusions. A l'entrée de la ville, plusieurs milliers de personnes ont trouvé refuge dans une rue, transformée en boulevard de l'attente, et dans deux mosquées, l'une pour les femmes et les enfants et l'autre pour les hommes, toutes deux encombrées de valises.

Il y a là des centaines de malades, d'étudiants, de résidents dans des pays étrangers bloqués dans la bande de Gaza depuis le coup de force du Hamas le 15 juin 2007, et qui ont cru qu'ils allaient pouvoir se faire soigner, poursuivre leurs études ou retrouver les leurs. Pas de tampon de sortie, pas de possibilités de se rendre au Caire. Alors, ils attendent, depuis le 23 janvier, que les autorités égyptiennes fassent un geste. Beaucoup ont des visas en règle, les documents médicaux appropriés, des cartes de séjour de pays étrangers valides. Ne manque qu'un coup de tampon égyptien, ce qui les classe parmi les illégaux. Des malades ont dû être hospitalisés. "Faudra-t-il une révolte, un mort pour que l'on s'inquiète de notre sort", proteste Bassam, rongé par un cancer du pancréas.

Finally, a popular uprising in Gaza

Amira Hass, Haaretz, 30.1.08. The chance of using the achievement of having breached the wall as a way of moving forward and developing the tactics of a popular struggle is hampered by two primary obstacles. One is what's called the "armed struggle" - such as rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli towns, or a suicide bombing in Israel. The Palestinian mantra that an occupied nation has the right "to fight using all means" rings hollow, since what's at stake is not a right, but the effectiveness of the struggle. The second obstacle is the Ramallah government's entrenched refusal to speak with Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas met with Ehud Olmert without preconditions during the same weekend when Israel imposed the cruelest siege yet on Gaza, but Abbas can't speak to Ismail Haniyeh without the Hamas leader accepting his preconditions?

It has been proven that through popular disobedience, the Palestinians manage to break the Israeli rules of the game and bring their concerns back to the center of global attention - as well as intensifying criticism of Israel. The "armed struggle," especially when it is aimed at civilians, achieves the opposite: It presents the Palestinians as the aggressor, not as the occupied party under attack, thereby weakening their global standing.

If the Gaza government does not want to lose the momentum of the wall's fall, it must not make do with just having its own militants desist from firing Qassams: it must make it clear to other organizations that they are hindering a successful move of resistance.

The second obstacle is the Ramallah government's entrenched refusal to speak with Hamas. These are, after all, two quasi governments whose legality is questionable from the perspective of the Palestinian Authority's basic law. But both represent the same occupied people and the same tract of land subject to an accelerated process of colonization - and that overcomes all legal quibbling. Mahmoud Abbas met with Ehud Olmert without preconditions during the same weekend when Israel imposed the cruelest siege yet on Gaza, but Abbas can't speak to Ismail Haniyeh without the Hamas leader accepting his preconditions?

This boycott contributes to the severance that Israel works so diligently to intensify. The longer the delay in direct talks between the two leaderships over practical ways of lifting the siege of Gaza, the greater the concern that indeed, as Hamas officials argue, the Ramallah government listens to the United States and to Israel - but not to the will of its own people.

Ahmed Youssef, conseiller politique du Hamas: «Ce qui s’est passé à Rafah est le début de la troisième Intifada»

CHRISTOPHE AYAD Envoyé spécial dans la bande de Gaza, libération.fr,30.1.08

Pourquoi ne pas cesser les tirs de roquettes contre Israël ?

Ces roquettes, c’est un prétexte pour Israël. Nous avons cessé les attentats-suicides, nous avons respecté quinze mois de trêve, de mars 2005 à juin 2006 [jusqu’à l’enlèvement du caporal israélien Gilad Shalit], cela ne les a pas empêchés de nous bombarder, de massacrer nos civils. Ces deux dernières années, 4 Israéliens ont été tués par des roquettes artisanales alors que 2000 Palestiniens ont été tués. Qu’est-ce qu’il faut faire ? Tirer des bouquets de fleurs ? Nous tirons des roquettes parce que nous n’avons pas le choix. Donnez-nous des F16 et on bombarderait Tel-Aviv comme eux le font à Gaza !

Ending the blockade of Gaza, understandings with Hamas to end the violence, including a ceasefire or a "hudna"

APN Urges Israel and U.S. to Forge Far-Sighted Gaza Strategy; Explore Ceasefire with Hamas

Washington D.C.—Americans for Peace Now (APN) today [25.1.08] issued the following statement regarding the situation in southern Israel, Gaza and on the Gaza-Egypt border:

"In recent days, the world has seen images of Gazans struggling to cope with a lack of fuel and electricity and an acute shortage of other supplies. This week, the world media is flooded with images of huge numbers of Gazans crossing the Egyptian border to purchase basic goods and necessities. Clearly, Israeli efforts to pressure Hamas by clamping down on Gaza, efforts condoned by the U.S., have resulted in increased desperation and misery for the people of Gaza. Wednesday's breach of the Egypt-Gaza border is a tangible consequence of this desperation and a disastrous development for Israel in terms of both security and its image in the world.

"The firing of rockets and mortar rounds from Gaza into Israel must end. APN and its Israeli sister organization, Peace Now, have repeatedly expressed solidarity with the residents of Israeli communities near Gaza who are suffering from such attacks. The government of Israel has the right – indeed, the obligation – to take measures to bring these attacks to a halt, as well as to seek to free its captured soldier Gilad Shalit.

"APN has also consistently held that Israel should avoid actions that constitute collective punishment or cause disproportionate suffering or casualties among civilians. Such actions are fundamentally wrong and ultimately counterproductive. It is equally wrong and counterproductive for the U.S. to condone such actions. The dramatic deterioration in the health and welfare of civilians in Gaza over the past year represents an entirely man-made, and entirely avoidable, humanitarian tragedy. This tragedy must be reversed, not as a concession to Hamas, but because it is the right thing to do, both morally and strategically.

"By now it should be clear that the policy of placing Gaza under siege is succeeding neither in stopping Qassam fire, nor in ousting Hamas. Tactics of this nature have been tried and have failed, repeatedly. Rather than continue down this disastrous path, Israel, with the support and urging of the U.S., should forge a more responsible, constructive, and far-sighted way forward in terms of both its tactics and strategy for Gaza.

"This new way forward should include ending the blockade of Gaza. It should also include urgent diplomatic efforts to address the security challenges associated with Gaza. In particular, Israel should explore the possibility of achieving understandings with Hamas to end the violence, including a ceasefire or a "hudna," either through direct contacts or via third parties, including President Abbas. Such an option has been embraced to various degrees by key Israeli military and security figures, including former national security advisor (to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) Giora Eiland, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, and former defense minister Shaul Mofaz.

"A ceasefire or hudna cannot be an end unto itself. A ceasefire or hudna is desirable as a means to halt violence and chaos in the immediate term, creating the space to facilitate improvements in the humanitarian situation and the establishment of a political process. In this way, it can allow the sides to avoid the re-emergence of violence in the longer term. Such a process could involve, as appropriate, the major relevant players: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Egypt. Absent improvements in the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the establishment of a political process, any ceasefire or hudna risks becoming merely an intermission to allow those attacking Israel to re-arm, re-trench, and enhance their military capability for future attacks.

"Similarly, it is vital that order and security be restored along the Egypt-Gaza border. This will require cooperation and coordination, including between Egypt and Israel, whose Camp David treaty governs military operations and deployments in the border area. Absent such coordination and cooperation, or absent accompanying improvements in the humanitarian situation inside Gaza, efforts to address the border situation will likely fail, with predictable results."

Obama: Palestinian refugees can't return

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND TOVAH LAZAROFF, MIAMI , The Jerusalem Post, 29.1.08. "The right of return [to Israel] is something that is not an option in a literal sense," Obama said - though he noted, "The Palestinians have a legitimate concern that a state have a contiguous coherent mass that would allow the state to function effectively." "The outlines of any agreement would involve ensuring that Israel remains a Jewish state," Obama told The Jerusalem Post and other members of the Jewish and Israeli press on a conference call. He reiterated his support for a two-state solution, but said, "We cannot move forward until there is some confidence that the Palestinians are able to provide the security apparatus that would prevent constant attacks against Israel from taking place."

His conversation with reporters and his support for the Israeli position on refugees came on the heels of scurrilous charges that Obama is secretly a Muslim who received a radical Wahhabi education. "I have never practiced Islam. I was raised by my secular mother, and I have been a member of the Christian religion and an active Christian." Obama said that "there is a strong and deep commitment and connection to the Jewish community that should not be questioned."

Yehoshua: "Solo un intervento esterno che imponga la soluzione può salvare la situazione

Monica Capuani, Intervista ad Abraham B. Yehoshua, La Repubblica delle donne, 29.1.08. [...] La gente è stanca, non guarda più il tg. Il destino ebraico, l’Olocausto, le guerre in Israele, la striscia di Gaza…: è un peso troppo grande. Siamo un popolo al quale la storia non ha mai concesso un periodo di pace, mai abbiamo vissuto in armonia col mondo. La gente sta cominciando a credere che ciò non finirà mai. [...] Sono sempre stato ottimista, confido nel potere della volontà, della ragione, della morale per cambiare l’uomo in meglio, gestire l’imprevedibile della vita. Non credo nel mistero, nel destino. Ora sono sfiduciato, fatalista sul conflitto in Israele. Ci serve l’aiuto del mondo: solo un intervento esterno assertivo, che imponga la soluzione alle parti più che suggerirla, può salvare la situazione.

ISRAEL-OPT: Medical supplies in Gaza running low

Photo: Wissam Nassar/IRIN

A premature baby in an incubator in Al Shifa hospital, Gaza. Oxfam has warned that continued electricity cuts are threatening the lives of such patients

JERUSALEM, 28 January 2008 (IRIN) - The Israeli-imposed restrictions on imports to the Gaza Strip are threatening the lives of vulnerable patients, the Oxfam aid agency has said. "Oxfam International is gravely concerned about the life and safety of the civilian population residing in the Gaza Strip," Oxfam's director said in a statement on 25 January. "In Shifa hospital in Gaza city, 135 cancer patients are currently unable to receive treatment due to the lack of basic medications," Oxfam said. The problem is attributable largely to seven months of blockade since Hamas took over in the enclave but last week's complete lock-down of Gaza exacerbated the situation, and the Rafah border break-out has not fundamentally changed the situation.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has said "the policy of the closed crossings to Gaza will continue except for transferring small amounts of fuel and humanitarian equipment," the Israeli Haaretz daily reported.

More on recent developments in Gaza

Relentless rocket attacks take psychological toll on children in Sderot

Top UN envoy urges more Gulf aid via UN

Fuel for Gaza's power plant allowed in

Militants force open parts of border with Egypt

UN, aid agencies appeal for US$461 million for oPt

Hospitals, sewage systems use emergency generators as rockets hit southern Israel

When the Rafah border was breached, one of the items people bought was medicines, though the amount purchased does not solve the overall problem.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a shortage of at least 88 drugs and 204 essential medical consumables in the Gaza Strip. WHO has called for the lifting of restrictions on medicine imports and patient movements, and said it was concerned by power cuts.

Fuel imports

Israel has begun to let in industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant, and the state prosecutor informed the High Court on 27 January that import levels would be raised to those prior to the increased restrictions implemented in October, but officials in Gaza have warned that this is not enough.

Prior to being declared by Israel a "hostile entity," the Strip imported 2.2 million litres of industrial fuel a week. However, increased winter needs, combined with the fact that in December the plant obtained a third turbine, mean the actual levels required are 3.5 million litres a week, power plant officials said.

Power outages are still being felt in all parts of the enclave, though mostly in the central region.

Photo: Wissam Nassar/IRIN

Dialysis patients get treatment in Al Shifa hospital, Gaza. Their lives depend on electricity being available

Gisha, one of the Israeli human rights organisations involved in the High Court appeal, has said there is a 30 percent drop in the water supply due to the power and fuel cuts, and the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) has been forced to dump daily some 40,000 cubic metres of raw sewage into the sea, said Gisha, quoting CMWU’s Monther Shublak.

Also, there remains no commitment that Israel will not cut fuel imports again, if, for example, rocket attacks against Israel increase.

The power cuts are affecting hospitals and health clinics, forcing them to rely on generators for many hours each day.

"We use generators at least six hours every day," Jamal Hawajri from the Union of Health Workers' Committees, a local health non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Gaza city, told IRIN. "This is costing us extra money, while we still can't operate at full capacity and have to cancel elective surgeries."

Protest

On 26 January about 1,500 Israelis - both Arabs and Jews - made their way to the Erez Crossing with Gaza to protest against the blockade, bringing with them several tonnes of food aid, as well as water filters.

At the end of the protest, Shir Shudzik, a 17-year-old girl from Sderot, stood up to express solidarity with the Gazans, while telling the crowd of her life since the rocket attacks began seven years ago. Her aunt and cousin were injured by a projectile from Gaza, but she said she had hope that Jewish-Arab solidarity would bring peace to the civilians on both sides.

IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

PCHR Calls for International Resolution over Rafah Crossing Crisis

28.1.08 10:30 GMT. The Palestinian Centre for Human rights (PCHR) is concerned about the continuing state of chaos on the Egyptian-Palestinian border. The Centre believes the current situation does not provide a solution regarding civilians' rights to safe and unhindered travel into and out of the Gaza Strip, especially as Rafah International Crossing Point remains officially closed.

PCHR calls upon all parties involved, including the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), and the international community, to resolve the crisis at the Rafah Crossing. The Centre reiterates that a sustainable solution is essential in order to ensure freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians, as well as the safe passage of goods into and out of the Gaza Strip, in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have crossed the border into Egypt since Palestinian activists blew up entire sections of the border fence in the early hours of 23 January, 2008. In addition to residents of Gaza crossing into Egypt en masse, hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who have been stranded in Egypt, due to the enforced closure of Rafah International Crossing Point, have also returned home to Gaza. The Egyptian authorities have responded positively and with restraint, allowing Palestinian civilians to purchase food, medicine, and other supplies which are not available in Gaza due to the escalating IOF siege and closure of the Gaza Strip.

However, opening the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip does not meet all the basic needs of the civilian population of Gaza. Civilians across the Gaza Strip still suffer from severe shortages, or total unavailability, of many essential items, including domestic fuel and industrial fuel for Gaza's single power plant. In addition, hundreds of students, patients, and Gazans living abroad remain in effective limbo; many have been waiting for permission to leave the Gaza Strip legally since June 2007. PCHR has learned that approximately 1,500 Gazans have gathered in the Egyptian town of Al-Arish, and have asked the Egyptian authorities to allow them to travel via Cairo to third countries, where they can pursue their work, study or medical treatment. They are currently awaiting an official decision from the Egyptian authorities.

PCHR reiterates its position that the chaos on the Rafah border during the past week is an inevitable consequence arising from the IOF siege and closure of the entire Gaza Strip. The IOF have deliberately deprived the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip of their human right to safe movement and unrestricted travel. In addition, the closure has prevented essential goods and medicine reaching the civilian population. PCHR notes that IOF have tightened the closure of the Gaza Strip since June, 2007. Since then, all border crossings into and out of Gaza have been effectively sealed, including the Rafah Crossing.

IOF has also maintained the effective closure of the Beit Hanoun (Erez) Crossing between Gaza and Israel, as well as the commercial crossings of Al-Mentar, Sofa, and Nahal Oz. IOF have sporadically opened these crossings to open, in order to facilitate the passage of some food and medical supplies into Gaza. However, these supplies have consistently failed to meet the needs of the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza.

As a front-line human rights organization, PCHR is continuing to monitor developments in the Gaza Strip and on the Palestinian/ Egyptian border, which were triggered by the basic needs of the civilian population for food, medicine, and other supplies. PCHR therefore:

- Calls upon the international community to actively participate in finding a just and sustainable solution to this crisis that will ensure the safe and unrestricted movement and travel of the civilian population as well as of imported and exported goods.

- Calls upon IOF to respect International Humanitarian Law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention, and to facilitate a rapid and just solution regarding freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians through the Rafah Crossing. PCHR calls upon IOF, as the Occupying Power, to completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and to hand control of the Rafah Crossing to the Egyptian and Palestinian authorities; or else to openly declare that it is still an Occupying Power in the Gaza Strip. As an Occupying Power, the IOF must fulfill its legal obligation to establish a clear working mechanism, administered by a third party, to ensure the free and safe movement of civilians and goods into and out of the Gaza Strip.

- Calls upon the Egyptian authorities to contribute towards resolving this crisis in line with its historical role in the Palestinian issue, and its moral and legal responsibilities under international humanitarian law. As a High Contracting Party of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Egypt is obliged to ensure the protection of the civilian Palestinian population, and to take the practical steps necessary to protect the civilian Palestinian population.

- Calls upon the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their moral and legal responsibilities to protect Palestinian civilians from collective punishment imposed by IOF; and to work towards ensuring freedom of movement for Palestinian in the OPT, as guaranteed under international human rights law. The Centre calls upon the High Contracting Parties to ensure that any future working mechanisms of the Rafah Crossing conforms with international standards of border crossings, as opposed to the humiliating mechanisms designed and implemented by IOF that are currently violating the right of Palestinian civilians to free and safe movement.

Public Document

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For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 - 2825893

PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org

At the gates of Gaza

Nurit Peled-Elhanan, 26.1.08. These words are dedicated to the heroes of Gaza who have proven once again that no fortified wall can imprison the free spirit of humanity and no form of violence can subdue life.

The appeal to go today to the gates of Gaza at the height of the pogrom being carried out by the thugs of the Occupation army against the residents of the Gaza Strip has terrible echoes of another appeal that was sent out into the air of the impassive world more than a hundred years ago.*

"Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind your way;
There with your own hand touch, and with the eyes of your head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead."

What can one think as one stands at the gates of Gaza?

Only this:

"There in the dismal corner, there in the shadowy nook,
Multitudinous eyes will look"

What can we imagine today as we stand at the gates of Gaza, other than

"A babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared, the poor chick finding rest
Upon its mother's cold and milkless breast;

And "how a dagger halved an infant's word,
Its ma was heard, its mama never heard.
O, even now its eyes from me demand accounting,"

And what can we say to this infant, who demands from us accounting - we who stand helpless at the gates of Gaza? What will we explain to him and to all the hungry, sick children locked in that terrible ghetto, surrounded by wire fences, what can we say to the babies whose lives have been choked out of them in incubators before they began their lives because the State of the Jews shut off the flow of oxygen? What can we say to all the mothers who are searching for bread for their children in the streets of Gaza and what can we say to ourselves? Only this: sixty years after Auschwitz the State of the Jews is confining people in ghettoes and is killing them with hunger, asphyxiation and disease.

"Brief-weary and forespent, a dark Shekinah
Runs to each nook and cannot find its rest;
Wishes to weep, but weeping does not come;
Would roar; is dumb.
Its head beneath its wing, its wing outspread
Over the shadows of the martyr'd dead,
Its tears in dimness and in silence shed."

Because today, as we stand at the gates of Gaza, we have no voice, we have no words and we have no deeds. There is not a single Yanosh Korchak among us who will go in and protect the children from the fire. There are no Righteous Gentiles who will endanger their lives in order to save the victims of Gaza. We stand forlorn and contemptible in front of the gates of evil, in front of the fences of death, and obey the racist laws that have taken control over our lives, and all of us are helpless.

When Bialik wrote:
" Satan has not yet created Vengeance for the blood of a small child,"
It did not occur to him that the child would be a Palestinian child from
Gaza and his slaughterers would be Jewish soldiers from the Land of
Israel.

And when he wrote:

Let the blood pierce
through the abyss!  Let the blood seep
down into the depths of darkness, and
eat away there, in the dark, and breach
all the rotting foundations of the earth.

He did not imagine that those foundations would be the foundations of the Land of Israel. That the Jewish and Democratic State of Israel that uses the expression "blood on his hands" to justify its refusal to release freedom fighters and peace leaders would submerge us all in the blood of innocent babes up to our necks, up to our nostrils, so that every breath we take sends red bubbles of blood into the air of the Holy Land.

"And I, my heart is dead, no longer is there prayer
on my lips;
All strength is gone, and
hope is no more.
Until when,
How much longer,
Until when?"

* The poems "City of Slaughter" and "On Slaughter" were written by the Jewish poet Haim Nahman Bialik in tribute to the victims of the Kishinev Pogrom in 1903, Russia - trans.

ISRAEL-OPT: Relentless rocket attacks take psychological toll on children in Sderot

SDEROT, 27 January 2008 (IRIN) - At least 75 percent of children aged 4-18 in the southern Israeli town of Sderot suffer from post-traumatic stress, including sleeping disorders and severe anxiety, new findings published in January say.

The report by Natal, the Israel Trauma Centre for Victims of Terror and War, comes after the town first came under Palestinian militant rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in 2001. In the last two years the number of projectiles has risen significantly, and in recent months rocket fire has become an almost daily event.

The Natal report, based on a representative survey, indicates that some 28 percent of adults suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. It suggests that the biggest impact was on the young, who suffer nightmares, loss of appetite and problems at school.

Some 120 children are currently undergoing long-term mental health therapy.

This is not surprising, say experts, given that many times the rocket fire is timed for the early morning when children head to school.

Red Colour system

During a visit by IRIN to the town on a school day, over 10 rockets landed in or near the city between 7am and 8.30am. Every time rockets triggered the warning siren - the now infamous `Tseva Adom' or `Red Colour' system - children ran for cover.

The system is only partially effective. One resident said the siren gives people between zero and 15 seconds to find cover - "and most of the time it's closer to zero".

Shlomi Argon, in his mid-30's and a Sderot resident, has a gaping hole in his roof, where a rocket landed earlier in the month, injuring his wife and the neighbour's child who had a play-date with his four-year-old son Nir.

“It's like Russian Roulette”

"It's like Russian Roulette. You know that eventually a rocket will land on your house," he said, looking away from the sunshine coming through his roof.

Before the Oslo Accords of the 1990s he worked with Palestinians from Khan Younis, in Gaza, in agricultural fields. He still maintains contact with them. "We speak almost every day. They feel very sorry for what happened," Shlomi said, adding that he too was distraught over the bloodshed in Gaza.

A high school student told IRIN that her family had not slept in their bedrooms for six months.

"We all sleep in one room on the bottom floor, which is considered safe," the teenager said, adding: "Some days my mum begs my dad to leave this place… To go anywhere where we can walk to school without fearing Qassams [Palestinian rockets]."

"People who can afford to, have moved out of the city, but my family can't," said Shayli, a 17-year-old. She said her mother tried to keep her inside the house as much as possible.

"This is taking a huge toll on our lives," she said, noting that she could no longer remember when the security situation was better.

Dalia Yossef, the manager of a local branch of a national organisation for trauma intervention, Hosen, said the challenge in treating the children was that the rockets continued to fall.

"It's ongoing, there is no 'post'. How do you treat post-trauma in this situation?" she asked.

Officially Sderot’s population is 23,000 but in reality about 14,000 live there, as many have left and many people are registered as living there but do not for tax reasons.

IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.