<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Gaza attacks trigger Israeli border exodus

Distance from line adds seconds for run to bomb shelter

The Columbian
Published: August 25, 2014, 5:00pm

JERUSALEM — Hundreds of Israelis left their homes along the border with the Gaza Strip on Monday, reflecting growing frustration over the war with Hamas and the Palestinian mortar fire raining down on their communities. Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled the area in nearly two months of fighting, which has turned the communities into virtual ghost towns.

With the school year fast approaching, the government began offering assistance to residents Monday in the first large-scale voluntary evacuation in nearly eight weeks of fighting.

Officials estimate that 70 percent of the 40,000 inhabitants of the farming communities along the Gaza border have left over the course of the fighting, including hundreds on Monday. Some went to stay with relatives and friends, while others are staying at hostels or were taken in by strangers who want to help fellow Israelis.

Fields that once yielded vegetables and flowers are barren and pockmarked by Palestinian mortar shells. Streets are empty and most homes eerily silent.

The fighting has killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, according to Gaza officials, leveled thousands of buildings and left tens of thousands of people homeless.

The death toll on the Israeli side has been much lower, largely because of Israel’s network of air raid sirens, bomb shelters and the Iron Dome missile-defense system.

Yet Israel’s defenses have been largely ineffective against short-range mortar fire — a deficiency underscored when a 4-year-old boy was killed Friday by a Palestinian mortar shell.

“The community is very close to the border, and we have almost no warning of incoming fire,” said Elazar Ashtivkar, a 30-year-old father of four who left Nahal Oz, the scene of the deadly attack, several weeks ago with his family.

mobile phone icon
Take the news everywhere you go.
Download The Columbian app:
Download The Columbian app for Android on Google PlayDownload The Columbian app for iOS on the Apple App Store

He said the family is now staying in a nearby kibbutz, where he has 15 to 20 seconds to get to a shelter, which he said is an improvement.

He said nearly all of Nahal Oz’s roughly 400 residents have left. Only a few workers, in charge of taking care of the cows, along with some security personnel remain, he said.

“The agricultural fields were destroyed. There is nothing now,” he said.

He said he will return as soon as it is safe. “We just want quiet. We don’t want to be scared when our kids go to school,” he said.

The military says Gaza militants have fired at least 1,400 mortars on the border communities since the fighting began.

It is not the first time residents have left their homes during the fighting. Several weeks ago, heavily armed Gaza militants tunneled into territory near their communities, terrifying residents and sparking an exodus.

“It is their right to leave, and we will assist them with temporary solutions,” Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Sunday.

But he stressed the evacuations were voluntary: “The state of Israel will not run away from terror organizations. It fights terror organizations.”

The fighting has caused even more disruption for students in Gaza, where U.N. schools have being used to shelter several hundred thousand people. Officials have delayed the start of classes, which were supposed to begin on Sunday.

The building contained the offices of the Palestinian housing ministry, in addition to residential apartments and a shopping mall. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Loading...