The southern Israel town of Sderot hunkered down on Friday, fearing a return to incessant rocket fire from Hamas in Gaza after a missile struck a building housing a yeshivah adjacent to the local Chabad center and synagogue, where dozens were in the middle of a Torah class.
“We had a very difficult evening,” Rabbi Moshe Zeev Pizam, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Sderot, told Chabad.org. “We were sitting at the Chabad House for a Torah lesson in preparation for Shabbat, with dozens of people participating, and suddenly a Red Alert sounded. Before we could do something, we heard a loud and terrible explosion.”
The rocket, fired from Gaza on Thursday night at around 9 p.m. into the city from about 20 miles away, damaged the exterior of the building, but caused no injuries. Visible on the outer face of the yeshivah was a deep gash from the rocket with debris scattered on the parking lot and sidewalk, and several shattered tempered-glass windows.
“Most of the students had just gone on Shabbat break, but we are very concerned about handling another situation where there is the possibility of further explosions and firing of rockets with little to no prior warning,” Pizam said, noting Sderot residents have about 15 seconds to seek shelter once a siren is sounded. He said the rocket did not detonate, but if it had, the damage would have been much worse.
A handful of students remained at the yeshivah—Lev Ladaat hesder yeshivah, which combines Torah study with military duty—with three having just sat down to recite Tehillim (Psalms).
Helping Traumatized Elderly and Children
Pizam called on fellow Sderot residents to join in the efforts of the Chabad-Lubavitch community to make social visits and deliver food to the elderly, who are often homebound and overwhelmed both during and after such attacks. He said thousands of senior citizens, other adults and children spent the night in bomb shelters.
Visits are also being made to traumatized and frightened children. “We bring them toys and presents to try to make them a little happy and relieve the tension,” said the rabbi. “They live in a constant state of stress and anxiety. Even on calm nights and days, there is no real calm, which is disturbed further by the smell of fires from incendiary balloons that blow in our direction.”
Sderot has long been on the front lines of terror attacks and arson coming from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
Amid threats of the situation deteriorating into an all-out war—and a call from Israeli citizenry and some government officials to reckon with Gaza once and for all—Pizam said major protective projects are underway to better shield the city’s relatively unprotected mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) and schools. Sderot already has a fortified 22,000-square-foot indoor play area and community facility, and more bomb shelters than most Israeli cities.
The missile that struck the yeshivah was the second rocket aimed at southern Israel in less than 24 hours—despite the fact that a cease-fire had been in place. The resurgence of Gaza aggression comes less than a month after a deadly campaign that took the lives of four Jews in southern Israel in early May, when an estimated 700 rockets were fired from Gaza. The first in the latest round occurred before dawn on Thursday morning when a rocket was fired into the Eshkol region. It was intercepted by the Iron Dome air-defense system, causing no injuries. In response to the latest rocket fire, Israeli aircraft bombed a Hamas underground facility in the southern Gaza Strip. Pizam said there was evidence of continued shelling by Israel as he retired at 1:45 a.m. on Friday.
The attack that struck the yeshivah building came hours after Israel announced that it was reimposing a full naval closure of the Gaza Strip, not allowing fishermen access to the sea, in response to a recent wave of incendiary balloons and explosive devices being launched towards Israel from Gaza.
He said the greatest concern is that “the Arabs will start shooting a lot of rockets again, and that at any moment an all-out disaster will happen. G‑d have mercy.”
Join the Discussion