Crosshairs City

Dawn Eden has been posting extensively of late about the under-reported story of the eight years of rocket attacks by Palestinian terror group Hamas against civilian targets in southern Israel. She has a special interest in the story: Her brother, his bride, and their unborn child live in Beer-Sheva. 40 missiles have struck in or near that city since December 30.

Her most recent entry has video of a May17, 2007, Qassam rocket attack on Sderot, just across the border from Gaza City. The rocket hit a synagogue which was in the midst of celebrating the completion of its new Torah. Miraculously, the rocket did not detonate, and no one was injured. This was home video that was being taken of the celebration in the synagogue and a procession through the streets (interesting for that aspect alone), prior to capturing the aftermath of the rocket's impact on the synagogue.

The video was edited, annotated, and posted by the Sderot Media Center, a citizen journalism organization. I was struck by their use of crosshairs in the logo of the website, which exists to help the world understand what it is like to live at all times in the terrorists' sights.

The Sderot Media Center is an organization of citizen journalism that also serves as a news agency.

The Center was founded with the purpose of uncovering and publicizing the voices of a population marginalized by the conflict: the residents of Sderot and the Western Negev who suffer daily from the terror of Kassam attacks.

We give trips to members of the media, diplomats and students with the goal of spreading awareness of the situation in Sderot, and the routine of everyday life for people living with the reality of impending Kassam attacks.

As Dawn says in her headline, this is "news you won't see on CNN."

In a previous entry, Dawn has video from the Israel Defence Forces of a weapons cache in a Gaza mosque, an illustration of the way Hamas uses schools, mosques, and the Palestinian people as shields for their attacks on Israeli civilians.

She links to the website of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, which is trying to raise funds to help them protect their students, serve their community, and do their best to continue their mission while dealing with incoming rockets on a daily basis. Their list of needs will give you an idea of what Israeli civilians must cope with. Here are just a few:

• Installing a supplemental alert system to insure that warning sirens are heard in every corner of BGU's three Beer-Sheva campuses.
• Purchasing additional equipment to fight fires and carry out possible rescue operations on campus.
• Adapting facilities to safeguard flammable and combustible materials and supplies used in University laboratories and by University services.
• Hiring and training security personnel to manage the movement of people and equipment in the event of a direct missile strike....
• Adapting the University sports center for soldiers on leave, providing them a place to sleep, shower and briefly refresh themselves -- for many while they are visiting wounded comrades at the University-affiliated Soroka hospital.

Dawn asks for prayers for her brother and his family and for peace in the Holy Land. I'll add to that a request for prayers for friends who live at the other end of the country, in an area that has been targeted by Hezbollah rocket attacks in the past; they have a son in the IDF.

Pray for peace. Pray that the Hamas war-makers, the mis-leaders of the Palestinian people, will be defeated utterly.

MORE: Backyard Conservative links to Alan Dershowitz's column about Hamas' "dead baby strategy" and adds this cartoon that says it all: