Sderot: The World Turns its Back

 

by  Jacob Shrybman

It doesn't seem that there will be any quiet.

 

Yesterday alone, over 89 trucks of international aid and gasoline were poured into the Gaza Strip. Since September 1, 2009, over 700 truckloads of international aid, including over 1,760,000 liters of gasoline have been given to the Gaza Strip. Since the end of Operation Cast Lead on January 18 of this year, over 2,000 truckloads of far more than 37,000 tons of humanitarian aid has been delivered to the Gaza Strip.

 

As the international community continues its uproar over the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Israeli Civil Administration, which manages the Palestinian Authority requests for aid, goods and gasoline, says that these are in fact decreased amounts.

"Over the past two to three months we have seen a definitive decrease in the requests from the Palestinian Authority, because they have goods, foods and medicines that still have not been used," Guy Inbar says. He continues by explaining the situation inside the Gaza Strip: "As we have said before, there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

 

While sitting for hours watching truck after truck drive in and out of the Gaza Strip, I spoke over the phone with Dr. Adriana Katz, director of three of the five mental health and trauma centers in Sderot. She told me that there has been no change in the lack of budgets for the centers. The area's trauma centers, which are constantly treating the victims of largely psychological terrorism, are being forced to close their doors. The Emergency Center in Sderot, which is the first aid clinic that treats victims immediately after an attack, was shut down this past July; the director of the Sderot Trauma Center, Dalia Yosef, has been let go; and the area's four remaining centers are all set to be closed by December 1.

 

How can a world that prides itself on slogans and political jargon regarding "both sides of the conflict" and "two states for two peoples" completely turn its back on Sderot?

 

After a letter from the Sderot Media Center to the European Union, calling for international aid for the victims of rocket fire in southern Israel, British Ambassador Tom Phillips visited the trauma centers in Sderot with the Center on June 4. Ambassador Phillips met with both Dr. Adriana Katz and Dalia Yosef regarding the situation of the trauma centers; yet, the centers still have not seen any allocation of aid.

 

On August 5, five top Australian parliamentarians visited the closed Emergency Center in Sderot, but the centers still have not seen any allocation of aid.

 

On August 11, Texas Governor Rick Perry and ranking Republican member of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen visited the closed Emergency Center in Sderot, but the centers still have not seen any allocation of aid.

 

With now more than 240 aerial attacks from the Gaza Strip since the end of Operation Cast Lead, and eight in the past week, Dr. Adriana Katz commented "It doesn't seem that there will be any quiet, even though I am only slated to work until December 1."

 

An average of 80 truckloads a day of international aid and gasoline, all materials frequently used to produce the fuel for the Kassam rockets, will continue to pour into the Gaza Strip with no end date in sight. And the world turns its back on the thousands and thousands of Israeli victims of the past decade of rocket attacks.

 

Jacob Shrybman is an activist and writer with the Sderot Media Center.

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