Education Minister Yuli Tamir on Friday guaranteed government funding to protect Sderot schoolchildren from continuous Qassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, after a meeting she held in the city with concerned parents and teachers.

The parents said that they would withrdaw their children from school if progress on fortifications against rockets was not made by the start of the school year. This could delay the start of the school year, though Tamir said this would not happen.

Funding will be issued to renovate and fortify bomb shelters in public schools in the western Negev town. The government has also pledged to build new, fortified schools in Sderot; make 54 bus stops and hitchhiking posts in the city resistant to Qassam rocket fire; allocate funds for the construction of new schools and increase the number of buses chaperoning children to school.