Last update - 00:00 17/05/2007
Defense Min. halts evacuation of Sderot after 2,500 leave city
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters
The Defense Ministry on Thursday halted the evacuation of the western Negev city of Sderot after some 2,500 of its residents had already left the city.
Palestinian militants had fired some 30 Qassam rockets at the western Negev on Thursday, one of which slammed into a high school on the outskirts of Sderot, lightly wounding two people. On Tuesday, over 30 rockets landed in the western Negev, wounding two people, one moderately to seriously.
800 Sderot residents had been evacuated by the Defense Ministry earlier on Thursday to facilities run by the Association for Soldiers' Welfare in the area. However, the evacuation was later halted due to the large number of residents demanding accommodations and low availability.
Dozens of Sderot residents stormed the office of Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal after learning the evacuation had been cut short, demanding action to protect them.
In addition to the 800 residents evacuated by the state, Russian-born Israeli tycoon Arcadi Gaydamak also provided some 1,600 residents with hotel rooms in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva, which he personally funded.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Sderot Thursday and told residents of the border town that the government would stand firm and work to reduce the Qassam attacks.
Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said the prime minister told people in Sderot during a visit lasting several hours that "we have to stand strong" and he pledged government help. But, as Israel mounted a series of air strikes and a ground raid in Gaza, Olmert made no comment on operational specifics, she said.
Also meeting relatives of some of those injured in recent days was Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who himself lives in Sderot.
"The prime minister ... expressed his empathy and how much he and the government are there for the people of Sderot," Eisin said, adding that two rockets had landed during the visit.
"He talked about the fact that we have to stand strong," she said. "That we have to get down the amount of attacks."
Olmert has opposed evacuating Sderot, Peretz' home town, where one rocket slammed into a house near the defense minister's own on Wednesday. Peretz has proposed that sizable numbers of residents be brought out of the city for a "break" from the rocket attacks, which have continued sporadically for the last five years.
Many families also left the city on their own accord to stay with friends or relatives in other cities. Schools in the city were closed Thursday for the second day in a row.
In response to increasing Qassam attacks on Sderot, the Defense Ministry has implemented two command centers in the town. It has deployed over one hundred soldiers whose task is to go from door to door, checking if residents require assistance.
Dozens of welfare services workers have also been sent to verify the condition of the town's 2,300 elderly citizens, 350 disabled people and 80people with intellectual disabilities who are known to the bureau.
Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh said the systems put in place Thursday were prepared seven months ago, during the last bout of concentrated rocket attacks on the town. They were not applied at the time because the attacks waned.
Sneh denied that the measures have been implemented as a response to the evacuation funded by Arcadi Gaydamak.
Approximately 320 elderly and disabled citizens were evacuated by welfare services. A further 75 disabled people and their families were evacuated to hotels in Arad, in Israel's south, for a three-day holiday financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Around 150 elderly citizens were evacuated to two hotels in Jerusalem, and the families of 20 intellectually disabled residents were accommodated in Jaffa Community Center for one week funded by the National Association for the Habilitation of the Mentally Handicapped in Israel.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged restraint on all sides but said Israel had the right to respond to rocket attacks from Hamas.