“Every second we thought we were going to die,” says Ortal Dadya, a 39-year-old Israeli, shortly after leaving the room where she took refuge with her family during the violent incursion by militants from Hamas in Sderot, near the Gaza Strip Loop.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she adds, overwhelmed, in a feeling shared with the other inhabitants of that city that after the attack was plagued with pools of blood and shells of bullets.
The smell of burning metal still permeates the air, with columns of smoke rising from a charred police station.
Sderot is one of the Israeli towns attacked on Saturday by Palestinian militants while rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip.
The offensive unleashed by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which governs Gaza, left more than 600 dead and 2,000 injured in Israel, according to authorities.
In Gaza, the bombings launched in response by Israel left more than 400 dead so far, the Palestinian Ministry of Health indicated.
In Sderot, the attack plunged the population into insecurity. “I want to leave Sederot, but I’m afraid and my children don’t want to leave,” Dadya, standing in a stairwell, told AFP.
Israeli authorities have not yet revealed how many of the 600 dead were killed in the attack on Sderot.
“We just hope it all ends”
In the city, traces of violence are omnipresent. In some places, flies hover around bloody clothes. In others, you can see riddled and abandoned cars. And in front of the police station, medical supplies scattered on the street.
Daniel Machluf, who was visiting the city, says he lost friends. Others were injured.
“The rockets started and we sat waiting for them to end. Then the bullets began to be heard.”says the young man, 24 years old.
“We just hope it’s all over now.”he adds, while explosions are heard in the background, coming from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the population that the war will be “long and difficult.”
Although in recent years the population living near the border has become accustomed to hearing the sirens of airstrikes, the number of Israeli victims in previous wars against Hamas has been much lower than that of Palestinian victims.
Yaakov Shoshani, 70, says that when he learned that armed men had broken into Sderot, he grabbed a knife and a screwdriver.
“All the systems have failed here, everything related to intelligence, military intelligence, civil intelligence, everything related to sensors and the fence. [de Gaza]everything has failed”, he confirms.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
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