by Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths

S'Derot Israel is the southern Israeli town, 100% civilian, that has been under constant missile and rocket bombardment by the murderers of Gaza. You know, the peace partner.

Today, I visited S'Derot to see the town that's been hit with over 7,000 (!!!) rockets, on the first full day of the re-arming "truce"...

S'Derot is just about as far south as you can travel down the Israeli coast. Go past Tel Aviv, past Ashdod, past Ashkelon, turn left at the Gaza fence, definitely turn left...



Welcome to S'Derot, a pretty town, green with palm trees and flowering bushes...



Like your average Israeli town, it has some unidentifiable municipal art, your basic Israeli grocery chain, and your basic American chain store...



Recently most Israeli towns have escued traffic lights for the annoying (but successful in slowing road speeds) traffic circle, with decoration, and S'Derot is no exception...



The shopping district looks pretty average, in fact most of the town looks pretty average, nicer than many poorer towns actually...



Green spaces, parks and playgrounds, were plentiful and well kept...



In fact, it all looked pretty normal, a nice pretty well off southern Israeli town, until we saw this...



We didn't realize until that, all the bus stops have been converted into minature bomb shelters. Most of Israel gets bus stops with a bench and some shade, S'Derot gets a bench and a concrete box.

Given you've got 15 seconds to find cover, this makes a lot of sense. Further, as you can see, they've started to move ugly to tastefully done. (Did I just write that, tastefully done bomb shelters?)



Not all areas are covered by the bus stop shelters. Some parks and public squares have these cheap-insta-shelter, a bunch of concrete barriers in a square pattern creating a narrow corridor to quickly duck between. Some local residents have taken up the task of making them a bit less ugly...



There's no real obvious signs that this is a town under international war crime civilian bombardment. The first we came across was this burned down cypress grove...



All in all, just another pretty tree lined town under constant attack placing all the citizens in life threatening terrorizing torture multiple times every day...



All photos by Akiva, taken on June 20, 2008 in S'Derot, Israel.

Free Home Delivery! - From Mystical Paths, MPaths.com.