By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Sep 30, 2004
Rather than rejoicing, the residents of Sderot will spend the Sukkot holiday mourning the murder of two young children in a “Palestinian” rocket attack on the western Negev town Wednesday evening.
Thirty other people were wounded in the bombardment, as residents prepared to mark what is known in English as the Feast of Tabernacles.
Tragic loss
Rocket attacks on Sderot have become a daily occurrence, but have rarely resulted in fatalities. On Wednesday, however, the terrorists succeeded in hitting their mark, killing Dorit Aniso, 2, and Yuval Abebeh, 4, outside their grandmother’s home.
The two were close relatives.
“A small child can no longer play outside? Why does a child playing in a sukkah [booth] have to die,” Yuval’s mother, Asras Chahayo Caso, asked through her tears?
Speaking to Ynet following the tragedy, Caso took readers through the last few moments of her son’s short life.
“We were sitting outside my mother’s house. My son was playing… Everything was normal. I watched him. He was having so much fun.”
“Suddenly there was a distant explosion,” Caso recalled. “We understood it was a Kassam, but didn’t stop to think where it had landed. And then there was another explosion right next to me.”
“Everything was black. Everyone was screaming. I searched for my Yuval. Suddenly I saw him next to me. His body was mutilated. I don’t think he had hands. I immediately understood he was dead. There was no doubt,” the distraught mother recounted.
“Yuval was everything to me,” she said.
The aunt of Dorit Aniso said the girl’s mother was also watching the children when shrapnel from the rocket tore through the body of her two-year-old daughter.
Another child was seriously wounded in the attack, and 14 others suffered light-to-moderate injuries, including severed legs. The remainder of the victims were treated for shock.
"I saw one little child without his legs. We tried to help the other [boy] but it was too late," Ha’aretz quoted neighbor Haviv Ben Abbo as saying.
"All our town is crying,” Ben Abbo added.
The Hamas terrorist organization, with which the Palestinian Authority is negotiating for shared control of Gaza following Israel’s retreat, claimed credit for the murder.
Weak reaction
Following the attack, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal to say Israel would respond harshly to the aggression against his community.
But as of Thursday morning, Israel’s only response had been to militarily divide the Gaza Strip into three sections, as it typically does following more serious artillery attacks.
That often repeated course of action has yielded little if any long-term security for the residents of Sderot and the Gaza Jewish communities.
One observer commented that it seems Israel “will try to ‘do’ anything except really do something” in response to the rocket and mortar attacks.
Media reports speculated that a more large-scale retaliation could be in the works.