ASHKELON, Israel — In the cities of southern Israel, people now measure the distance from Gaza in seconds, not miles, counting the time it takes for an incoming Palestinian rocket to hit.
In this coastal city about 10 miles north of Gaza, with a population of about 120,000, the residents have 30 seconds to run for cover. So when the air-raid siren pierced the tense quiet at lunchtime on Monday and several rockets roared toward the city, Ruti Toledano, 55, stopped cutting apples for a cake, she said, and ran with her grandchildren to a communal bomb shelter near her house.
“The fire, the smell of the fire,” she repeated, clearly in shock, minutes after one of the rockets had crashed into a neighbor’s yard. It blasted through a concrete wall and exploded on the patio of the Buzaglo family, causing damage but no injuries.
“That boom! Only God can help us,” Ms. Toledano said. “It’s not luck, it’s a miracle.”
Osnat Vachnish and her son Lior, 5, were taken from a house nearby to the hospital with trauma after the boom shattered the back window of their car. Lior and a brother, Bar, 15, have taken to sheltering under a dining table where a mattress has been placed. Bar had another close call when he was at a shopping mall that was struck by a rocket in 2008.
On the sixth day of Israel’s air campaign against what it calls the “terrorist infrastructure” in Gaza — which Israel says is mainly aimed at restoring deterrence and stopping the rocket fire — the sides seemed poised between a possible cease-fire and further escalation. Thousands of Israeli troops were massed along the border waiting for an order to cross. Israeli news media reported late Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was meeting with top cabinet ministers on the Gaza crisis, but there was no word on what, if anything, they had decided.
Palestinian health officials said that the accumulated death toll was at least 107, including 26 children, and that most of the victims were civilians despite Israel’s contention that it was taking care to target militants in precise strikes.
More than 800 rockets have been fired at Israel since the Israeli aerial assaults on Gaza began. A young mother and two men were killed in one attack. But despite the fear caused by years of intermittent rocket fire and the intensive barrages of recent days, many residents said that without a cease-fire guaranteeing long-term quiet on Israel’s terms, they would prefer the Israeli offensive to carry on.
Israel’s leaders call this willingness to endure “national resilience” and say it allows them to make their decisions comfortable in the knowledge that they have wide public support.
“I’m for a ground operation so there will finally be calm,” said Shimon Asulin, the father of two boys who study at the ORT Henry Ronson High School in Ashkelon, where another rocket fell earlier in the day. It slammed through a thick concrete roof at the entrance of the vacant building, where pupils would normally have congregated. Because lessons had been canceled, no one was hurt.
As Israeli airstrikes pummeled more targets in Gaza on Monday, Hamas and other groups there fired at least 135 rockets into southern Israel, and 42 were intercepted by the country’s Iron Dome antimissile system. Most of the others landed in open areas.
But with sirens blaring incessantly across the south, normal life has nevertheless come to a halt.
Evest Azano, 38, an immigrant from Ethiopia and a mother of six, had stepped out of the bomb shelter under an apartment building for some air while children played checkers inside. She has one son who is a soldier at the border. Cradling a baby of 3 months, she said she and her neighbors had been living and sleeping in the shelter since the hostilities began. On Sunday, a rocket had slammed into the top floor.
Ms. Azano said that she had not cooked anything since Friday because of the rockets and that her family was living on bread and spreads. She added, “We have no appetite at all.”
At the sound of the siren and the roar of the rockets, she and other women ran into the shelter. They sat on a makeshift couch, blocked their ears and rocked back and forth.
In Ashdod, the port city about 11 miles up the coast, residents have about 45 seconds to reach a protected area after an incoming rocket alert.
“We can go on,” said Yigal Abergil, 51, a truck driver for the municipality, drinking morning coffee with colleagues at a table outdoors as warplanes growled overhead. “It is worth suffering a bit more to finish the job.”
Many here said that if Israel had done more damage to Hamas in its three-week military campaign in the winter of 2008-9, it would not be fighting the same group again.
Esmeralda Nanikashvili, 45, was home watching television on Saturday when a rocket crashed into her building in the center of Ashdod. Her family had all made it into the safe room at the back of the apartment and escaped unharmed. The front wall of the apartment above them was blown away. A supermarket trolley filled with debris from the explosion sat in the Nanikashvilis’ living room.
“We’ve had cease-fires before,” Ms. Nanikashvili said on Monday, home because the dental clinic where she works was closed.
“I’m no expert. Our elected leaders should decide how to finish it off,” she continued, “but we need a solution so that we can live in quiet for years.”
On the wall in the hallway outside her apartment, neighbors had pasted a portrait taken from a newspaper of Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, alongside portraits of rabbis and holy men.
In Southern Israel, Running to Bomb Shelters for Cover
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In Southern Israel, Running to Bomb Shelters for Cover
