400 Rockets in 48 hours

Thanks to all our friends overseas for your messages of concern and support and for your prayers.

Thank God we are all well, our area has been mostly quiet.

Since early yesterday morning around 400 rockets have been fired in to Israel by the Islamic Jihad organisation in Gaza.

It's hard to explain this situation of emergency mixed with routine. Yesterday our region was among those where schools and many workplaces were closed. Today, after an inspection of all school and public shelters the authorities decided that we were far enough from the main target zone for life to resume, albeit with caution. No big public gatherings, no outdoor events, stay close to places with shelters.

We are trying to maintain a routine, even though the shadow of the rockets is ever present. Every odd noise, every sound that could be a siren or the whoosh of a rocket makes us stop whatever we are doing and try to determine whether we need to seek shelter.

Our children have gone to sleep in our home shelter for the second night in a row just in case there is a siren during the night.

There were sirens this morning for nearby villages, our town shook with the booms of the explosion caused by the Iron Dome anti-rocket defence system which successfully intercepted the rocket in midair.

Yesterday the air raid siren went just as I had one toilet training twin on the loo and the other was dressing. We dashed across our flat to the shelter, one with his trousers around his ankles, one half dressed. My elderly uncle, who had been napping in an armchair was startled awake by the siren, staggering out of the chair with the help of another child, struggling to reach the shelter in time. Shortly afterwards we heard the blast overhead of the successful Iron Dome interception of the incoming rocket.

We are profoundly grateful to the air-defence soldiers from the Iron Dome batteries who help to keep us safe, successfully intercepting close to 90% of the rockets fired in to Israel.

For our town in central Israel this security situation is rare, we last experienced rocket attacks in 2014, but people living in the Gaza border area of south-west Israel, live like this on a regular basis.

While in central Israel we have a whole minute and a half to run for shelter, in the north-west Negev they have only 15 seconds to take cover when the incoming rocket alert sounds.

The Israeli towns and villages closest to the Gaza border have been targeted the most in the last 48 hours with round the clock rocket bombardments that have hit homes, offices, schools, vehicles and infrastructure.

The large southern coastal cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod were the targets of heavy rocket volleys this evening. A rocket scored a direct hit on an assisted living facility for the elderly in Ashkelon, injuring a woman in her 70s.

Yesterday a rocket slammed in to a major motorway to the south of us, narrowly missing a car. It was a miracle that people suffered fairly minor injuries and no one was killed. (see traffic camera footage below)

Many Israelis have been treated for shock and trauma, others have been hurt scrambling to get to shelter in time.

As I'm writing this the alert has just sounded for areas just a 20 minute drive to the south of us.

I'm sad but glad that our children have bedded down in our shelter for the night. Just in case. 

motorway