As a small-town girl, having lived most of my life in Calais, I’ve come to carry a certain appreciation for the small-town way of life, especially in my travels here in Israel. Work as a journalist brings me to all sorts of places in this country, but my most recent station of work in a town called Sderot has perhaps most reminded me of growing up in Calais. Just like my hometown, this city, which is located on the southern border of Israel, has one movie theater, several schools and a post office that serves as the social center for gossip and news.

However, unlike the quiet, peaceful way of life that I knew back in Maine, the 20,000 residents of Sderot live in a far different atmosphere, which is why I am here.

Because Sderot is located about a mile away from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas and Fatah terrorists constantly launch Kassam rockets toward the western Negev area, Sderot residents for the past seven years have endured the frightening reality of rockets shelling their city on a day-to-day basis. The daily routines of a simple evening barbecue, shopping at the supermarket, or dropping the kids off at school, are overshadowed by the threat and actual presence of falling rockets.

It is a surreal reality, one which is virtually impossible to understand, as a Mainer or an American. I could never imagine any American town enduring even one rocket attack coming from Canada or Mexico. Even in Israel, the average Israeli has no idea what goes on beyond the headlines in Sderot. The radio and papers frequently relate that rockets have fallen but that no one in Sderot or outside was killed. Only by living in Sderot, did I realize that the real damage of the Kassam rocket is not necessarily the number of people that it kills or injures, but rather its ability to psychologically traumatize families and children.

My first experience in this field transpired in a visit I had with the Dahan family of Sderot. Yehudit, the mother, began by telling me that she refuses to let her family sleep on the second floor of their beautiful and relatively new home. “Every evening we take out the mattresses and sleep in the living room, in order to be as close as possible to the built-in bomb shelter in our home. My husband and children have been living this way for almost half a year.”

About five months ago, in May 2007, Sderot saw a dramatic increase in the number of Kassam attacks, as hundreds of rockets fell upon the city within a two-week period. The increase in rocket attacks caused a semi-evacuation of the city, and the population continues to dwindle to this day. Approximately 4,000 residents, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics have left Sderot within the last four years.

Many Sderot residents, like Yehudit Dahan, dream of leaving but are unable to do so because of their financial situation. “I would leave in an instant” Yehudit said. “But no one will buy our home.”

“Furthermore,” Yehudit continued, “I grew up here almost all my life. I love this town – this is our home. But I cannot continue to raise my children in this kind of environment.”

Another factor contributing to the anxiety and fear of many Sderot parents, like Yehudit, is that not all of the Sderot schools are properly fortified or protected against Kassam rocket attacks. “The only time I know my children are safe, are when they are at home with me,” says Yehudit. “Otherwise, I feel like a helpless duck, unable to protect my children from those rockets. The worst feeling is not knowing if my children are safe when a rocket lands.”

Indeed, this past September, the school year in Sderot opened with nine rocket attacks, including a direct hit on a courtyard of a day care center. The rocket launchers timed the attacks in the morning when parents dropped their children off at schools. Twelve of the day care children went into shock and were sent to a nearby hospital in the city. Parents who frantically came back to pick up their children minutes later, were in shock and disbelief as well.

Although the siren system installed by the Sderot municipality sounded at the time the rockets hit, the 15 seconds that Sderot residents have to escape into a bomb shelter once the siren sounds, would not have been enough for the day care children and the workers had the rockets landed closer. To date, hundreds of Sderot residents have been injured and up to 10 killed by the Kassam rocket attacks.

Here in Sderot, shell-shocked residents only hope that there will be some kind of government or military intervention soon, because these traumatized people are no longer capable of counting on mere miracles alone.

Anav Silverman is a 2004 graduate of Calais High School and is in her third year studying and living in Israel.