By Marney Blom
“Ceva Adom! Ceva Adom!” blasted the loud speaker in the Gaza-Israel border town of Sderot. At the time of the alarm I was in the process of recording an on-camera “stand-up” – the point in a report where the journalist speaks directly to camera – in an uncovered area not far from the Gaza border. Once the Ceva Adom “Code Red” alarm sounded, we had 15 seconds to get out of harm’s way. I grabbed my bag while my colleague clutched the camera and tripod, and we both bolted to the nearest protected area – a concrete shelter approximately four feet by five feet in dimension.
We had traveled to Sderot yesterday with a group of journalists to witness first hand, life under constant rocket fire. Over the past eight days more than 1,300 missiles, mortars and rockets have been launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip, 400 of which were intercepted by the Israeli built Iron Dome.
The driver of the media tour bus quickly followed us into the concrete shelter as it was simply too dangerous for him to stay in the vehicle.
“Can you imagine the people living [in Sderot]?” queried the driver, a resident of Jerusalem. “A few times a day they are running, running [to the shelters].”
By day’s end he would learn that the people of Jerusalem had also run to shelter that day. Once thought to be outside the range of rockets and missiles fired from the Gaza Strip, Israel’s capital must now come to terms with the fact that it has clearly become another Hamas target.
Copyright © Acts News Network, Inc.