Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry recently concluded a NIS 1.3 billion fortification project in Sderot and 43 other communities within 7 km. of Gaza.
“The project to fortify homes in Gaza-vicinity communities provided 9-sq.m. bomb shelters for 10,140 housing units that previously had no shelters,” the ministry said.
Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi spoke of the train station – fortified against rocket attacks – and a construction boom that includes six new neighborhoods. Children play in fortified playgrounds, with bomb shelters a few meters away. On July 1, a rocket hit an empty kindergarten.
Meanwhile, two years after the 2014 Gaza war, Israel’s Gaza border communities are enjoying demographic growth the likes of which has not been seen in many years, Israel Hayom reports. The image of trucks unloading the belongings of families who have moved to the kibbutzim and villages near the Gaza border reflects the depth of Israel’s victory in that war.
In the year 2000 – only a few years after the agreement to partially withdraw from Gaza that followed the Oslo Accords – the ongoing war crime of Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilian populations began. The 2005 disengagement from Gaza resulted in the escalation of this rocket fire and the expansion of its target range. For 14 years, the Gaza border communities were within daily firing range. The tough and painful blow that the IDF dealt to Hamas in 2014 served as a deterrent that has changed the reality on the ground.
David Steger -Matzav.com Israel
