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War on Terror

Sderot: Sharon waited too long to act


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
June 28, 2004

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon waited too long to appropriately respond to “Palestinian” artillery attacks on Jewish communities in the south of the country, and now a four-year-old boy and a grandfather are dead as a result, said residents of Sderot Monday.

Afik Zahavi and Mordechai Yosopov, aged 4 and 49 respectively, were killed when Arab terrorist forces purposely targeted Israeli civilians in a Kassam rocket attack on the small western Negev town during the early morning hours.

One rocket landed just meters from the kindergarten Zahavi and Yosopov’s granddaughter attended. Zahavi’s mother was critically wounded in the attack, and another 20 people were treated for light injuries.

"We warned about this over the past three-and-a-half years. We knew that this scenario could happen, although we hoped that it would not, but now it has,” Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told reporters.

Sharon and his government decided Monday to launch a military response to the attack.

Early morning terror

At around 8:30 Monday morning, two Kassam rockets were fired by “Palestinian” terrorists operating out of the northern Gaza Strip at the nearby Negev town of Sderot.

It is an occurrence the town’s residents are all too familiar with.

But Monday’s attack differed from other Kassam barrages in that it was the first time the Palestinian Arabs had managed to take Israeli lives with their homemade projectiles.

Typically, the rockets land on the outskirts of Sderot, well away from most of the local population.

But on Monday, one Kassam landed just outside a kindergarten, killing Yosopov and critically wounding four-year-old Afik Zahavi and his mother Ruth. Little Afik later died of his wounds, as surgeons in Beersheva fought to save both his and his mother’s lives.

Yosopov, 49, was walking his granddaughter to school, as he did every other day. Twenty other people were treated for light injuries and hysteria.

The second rocket slammed into a shopping center in the heart of Sderot, causing extensive damage but no casualties.

A third Kassam fired later in the morning landed in an open field.

Police investigators reported that the rockets used Monday morning were carrying a heavier payload than those used in previous attacks.

‘We told you so’

Since the start of the Arab-initiated Oslo War in September 2000, thousands of Kassam rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Jewish communities both inside Gaza and in the western Negev region.

Sderot’s mayor said Monday that the town had told Sharon’s government on numerous occasions that the attacks would eventually become fatal.

"We warned about this over the past three-and-a-half years. We knew that this scenario could happen, although we hoped that it would not, but now it has,” Eli Moyal told reporters.

Israel’s response to past Kassam attacks has typically consisted of small-scale IAF helicopter strikes on empty Gaza City warehouses, rather than the total eradication of the Palestinian Arab’s capabilities to launch artillery barrages.

Sign of things to come

Many in Israel took Monday morning’s deadly attack as a sign of things to come should Sharon succeed in implementing his plan to retreat from Gaza in the face of unrelenting “Palestinian” terror.

“Everyone is talking about the disengagement… All the government is doing is running away and that’s not a solution,” one local resident told Ma’ariv .

National Union Party chairman Avigdor Lieberman said pulling out of Gaza now would lead to daily Kassam attacks not only on Sderot, but other nearby Israeli towns as well. He called on Sharon to reconsider withdrawing in light of the attack.

While the Palestinian Authority has pledged to assume security responsibilities in Gaza following Israel’s pullout, defense officials have responded with skepticism to that promise. The PA has long refused to honor its security obligations under the Oslo Accords.

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