Sderot may be a cautious city, but it's no 'ghost town'

Yesterday the children of Sderot boarded buses to school and daycare between 7:30 and 8 A.M. as they always do. The route had not changed, but what had changed was the presence of a police escort. The Qassam rockets fell one after another until 8 A.M., and then a temporary quiet prevailed.

The press likes to use the term "ghost town" in describing Sderot, but the city is far from that. It is a cautious city - since a rocket fell in the central commercial area last week no one spends more than the time absolutely necessary to shop. They do their business and go home.

The children, who have grown accustomed in the recent months of the cease-fire to caper around the city's public parks, have now been reduced to stare at television and computer screens or to pile into stairwells.

In the seniors' room at Kibbutz Nir Am in the Gaza envelope this weekend, members in their 80s and 90s drank tea and discussed current events.

The "Code Red" alert at 5 P.M., and again ten minutes later, hardly moved anyone out of their chair. The room is reinforced - more or less - they said, and in any case, they've passed all the wars here. Another Qassam won't make a difference. Still, when they hear the blast of a rocket that fell adjacent to the kibbutz, they become noticeably fidgety.

Watching the television reports, one is inclined to believe the residents of Sderot and the Gaza envelope are seeking an immediate response to the rocket fire, an escalation of military activity against the launching infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. But that's not quite the case.

Sderot has seen the creation in recent years of two political groups with vastly different agendas. "Sderot Security Staff," a national-religious association, is demanding a firm military response. "Another Voice of Sderot," however, is an organization of veteran city residents like Zohar Avitan, Ahlama Peretz (the wife of former defense minister Amir Peretz) along with members of the Migvan "urban kibbutz," who are in regular contact with friends in Gaza and push for renewed negotiations between communities on both sides of the security fence.

Over 200 residents of Sderot and the Gaza envelope signed a petition recently calling for Defense Minister Ehud Barak to refrain from retaliatory action against the Gaza Strip in favor of seeking peaceful methods to end the rocket fire.

At least that is what they are seeking at the moment, while as we hear on TV, "no damage or injuries were sustained." But one tragic incident could shuffle the cards all over again.