THE PAIN IN ISRAEL-OK

From Masha Rifkin,Sderot, courtesy of http://www.shorashim.com

How can I begin to describe the experience I went through yesterday?
How can you capture the shaking ground, the unbearable noise of the
impact, the tears, the screaming, the mothers in hysterics — how can
you, the reader, feel what I felt, see what I saw — just by reading
these words? I ask you, leave your homes, your offices, your
classrooms — and step into this world for a moment, into Sderot.

It was a type of scream I couldn’t recognize, half laughter, half
terror, complete madness.

The first ‘TSEVA ADOM'(Red Alert) alarm went off as I was across the
street from my office, borrowing a friend’s computer on the fourth
floor of an apartment building. Like usual, we stepped into the
corridor — the safest place in the house — and waited. 15? 14? 13? I
had gotten to twelve when I heard the screaming. A type of scream I
couldn’t recognize, half laughter, half terror, complete madness. 11?
10? it fell. Maybe a block away at most. Everyone in the apartment
raced outside, and it wasn’t until 30 seconds later — when I woke
from my daze – that I realized the screaming hadn’t stopped. I was
about to step outside to join the rest when, ‘TSEVA ADOM’. Again. 15?
14? I had barely reached 13 when it crashed, shaking my entire body —
half a block away.

How often have you read about Sderot’s ‘anxiety victims’? What do you
picture — heightened blood pressure, breathing at a faster pace? No
— it is this woman’s body, convulsing, flailing. It is her inability
to think or move rationally — to protect her child.

My phone rang: it was my boss Natasha, telling me to immediately come
back to the office, as the fourth floor of any building was not safe.
I grabbed my roommate Jackie who had come with me for the day, curious
about my work in Sderot, and together we ran back across the street,
as quickly as we could — into the office. Natasha looked us over,
then asked if we had heard the scream. She explained that a young
mother was pushing her child in a stroller, when the first ‘tseva
adom’ alarm went off. Rationally speaking, she would have had enough
time to pick up her child and rush with him into a nearby basement.
But instead, she toppled over the stroller, child inside, and herself
fell to the ground — screaming. She did not cease until Natasha and
the others who ran out of the apartment lifted her and her child, and
carried her into a neighbor’s apartment. How often have you read about
Sderot’s ‘anxiety victims’? What do you picture — heightened blood
pressure, breathing at a faster pace? No — it is this woman’s body,
convulsing, flailing. It is her inability to think or move rationally
— to protect her child. She was only able to collapse, hitting the
ground, as if the tremor of her beating fists would keep away the Qassam.

Natasha, Jackie, and I sat in the office — trying to keep working.
That’s what you do in Sderot. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. We didn’t get
through much as every few minutes we would get phone calls from
hysterical parents. It was 7 o’clock, parents were still at work —
their children alone at home. All I could hear was Natasha screaming,
"Calm down? CALM DOWN. LISTEN TO ME, BREATHE! I WON’T TALK TO YOU
UNTIL YOU BREATHE. Listen, your children are fine. No, I don’t know
why they’re not picking up the phone. They probably ran downstairs. I
SAID CALM DOWN." Every few minutes another parent would call, having
heard that a Qassam fell by their home — unable to reach their children.

She was reliving it at that very moment — the sound that killed her
husband
It was at this moment that Purim Yakobov walked in — a mother of one
of my children. I will be taking her son to a summer camp in the
states this June, and we had set up this meeting the previous week so
that she would be able to ask all of her questions. She walked, amidst
the rainfall of Qassams, to keep the meeting. There she was, still
dressed in black — still mourning her husband — who died 6 months
ago from a qassam attack. She lowered herself slowly onto a chair, her
face absolutely white. She was reliving it at that very moment — the
sound that killed her husband. She took my hands, and pleaded with me,
"Please," she said, "I have nothing. I have no one. My sons are
everything. Promise me he will be happy. I need to hear it from you,
please, they are all I have". Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Jackie
— even amidst the stress of dealing with her first Qassams, threw her
arms around her. Purim left, and shortly after, ‘TSEVA ADOM’. We ran
into the corridor, there were many of us now — as the student
volunteers were holding a meeting. I tried to count down from 15
again, but was interrupted by one of the students. She was laughing.
"Hamas and Fatah finally made up, and in celebration, they’re firing a
nice salute to us!" she said. We all burst out into fits of painful
laughter? BOOM. The laughter abruptly stopped, and someone spoke what
was on all of our minds, "That one was really close".

Hyperventilating, choking on her tears, her screams, yelling for her
mother
Again I heard screaming; I looked around quickly and realized that
Natasha was not there. Suddenly I heard her voice, "MASHA, WATER!
HURRY!" I ran outside and found a circle of women, Natasha at the
center, trying to console a young girl. Another ‘anxiety victim’.
Hyperventilating, choking on her tears, her screams, yelling for her
mother over and over again. Natasha quickly poured cold water on the
girls face, and put her arms around her. The girl buried her face in
Natasha’s neck, clawing her fingers into her back, her shoulders,
leaving deep scratches all across body. Eventually her breathing
returned to normal; we seemed to be all breathing together, getting
lost in the few moments of calm, when ‘TSEVA ADOM, TSEVA ADOM’. The
girl fell to the ground screaming, ‘NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!’

I had to hold my breath to keep from gasping when I saw his bleeding eyes
A half hour later, two reporters from Tel Aviv arrived. They asked
Natasha if she could take them to the places that were hit by Qassams.
I asked to go along, and we shortly arrived to the first location — a
house which was hit directly. I followed the gaze of the crowds of
people outside, and saw that the qassam had completely demolished one
side of the house. A man emerged from inside, and we all rushed over
to him. I was surprised by how calm he was, until someone shown a
light over his face. I had to hold my breath to keep from gasping when
I saw his bleeding eyes. Or, what I thought was bleeding — red welts
had formed across them, he seemed unable to focus on anything. He
stared at nothing for a few moments, and then saidseemingly to no one
— "If you hear tseva adom, you can go here" and pointed, without
averting his blank gaze, to a small cement wall behind him. We were
eventually able to gently coax some answers out of him. It was not his
house, it was his sister’s. "She was standing in the kitchen" he
paused "her body was completely torn by shrapnels? I don’t know how
she is." Natasha probed further about the children. "Three of them
were in the basement — baruch hashem — but the fourth, I think he
may have been with her. The ambulance took them both away – I don’t
know how they are," he repeated. Another man pulled me aside to show
me where a woman had been standing, only a few meters from the house.
She had witnessed the entire scene, and had collapsed in shock. He
then pointed to a truck parked nearby, with a large hole in the back
windshield where a shrapnel had flown through. The shrapnel had missed
the woman’s face by mere centimeters.

The next location was in an apartment complex which houses mostly
invalids, senior citizens, and single mothers. The qassam fell
directly into the center of the complex. We came across a man
standing, staring at the damage. He showed how a shrapnel had flown
through his window and into his apartment. "My neighbor? she was just
watching T.V? a shrapnel went through her wall and into her eye."
Location after location, gruesome story after gruesome story, ‘tseva
adom’ after ‘tseva adom’, boom after boom. It felt endless.

Later that night, Jackie and I drove back to Tel Aviv with the two
reporters, amidst ‘TSEVA ADOMS’ and the sound of qassams crashing
nearby. In the car, we wondered what our friends were doing back in
the States — studying for finals, or perhaps celebrating their
completion. We were trying to avoid missiles – funny. Back in Tel
Aviv, we were unable to go up to our room. We were too heavy with
guilt knowing that merely an hour away, people were suffering without
help. We decided to take a walk, and soon after, a nearby construction
site made a noise all too similar to the qassams. Jackie ran to a bus
stop nearby, and screamed, crying, pounding her fists against the walls:

"I’M JUST SO ANGRY! PEOPLE ARE DYING, SUFFERING, AND EVERYONE IS SO
SILENT! WE’RE AN HOUR AWAY, AND NO ONE CARES! WHY ISN’T ANYONE DOING
ANYTHING, WHEN THEY CAN DO SO MUCH?"

As I write this, Qassams are falling in Sderot. Children are
screaming, mothers are collapsing in despair, doctors are pulling
pieces of shrapnel out of the bodies of Jewish people, and you are
reading this article out of the comfort of your home.

From Masha Rifkin, Sderot