Sderot residents: Barak folded, now Qassams are back
(VIDEO) Nine rockets and 13 mortar shells land in Israel on Monday as
defense minister announces easing of closure on Gaza. 'Resumption of rockets
is proof that Barak was brash,' says chairman of Committee for a Secure
Sderot
Shmulik Hadad Published: 01.22.08, 00:50 / Israel News

[for vidoo link:
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3497145,00.html ]

VIDEO - Sderot residents found little solace in Defense Minister Ehud
Barak's call for Israel to exert "more and more pressure on the Gaza Strip"
on Monday evening. Earlier in the day Barak consented to ease the
near-complete closure imposed on the Hamas-controlled territory, authorizing
the entry of humanitarian aid and a one-time shipment of diesel fuel to
power Gaza's electricity station less than a day after it was shut down.

Shortly after Barak's pronouncements the relative respite in rocket attacks
on southern Israel seemed over, with nine Qassam rockets and 13 mortar
shells landing in and around communities in the western Negev.

Several weeks ago Eli Dahan's wife Ayelet just barely managed to run down to
the family's bomb shelter with the couple's infant son seconds before a
Qassam rocket crashed into his nursery.

"The siege on Gaza gave us some room to breathe," he said on Monday. "We
thought to ourselves that maybe now Gaza's residents would pressure Hamas
into stopping the rocket fire. But there you go, our government immediately
retreated."

The family returned to their house this week, though the top floor has not
yet been repaired. "We wanted to come back to restore some sense of routine
for the children," said an outraged Dahan.

"We spent the evening with relatives and when we left to go home, the rocket
alert sirens blared," he recalled, "we started running and ducked for cover
behind a garbage container. I thought to myself how we, the parents, must
look to our children, running like this."

Alon Davidi, chairman of the Committee for a Secure Sderot, also expressed
his disappointment with the defense minister's decision: "The rocket fire
tonight is proof that Barak was too brash, he is a defense minister that
lacks an understanding of this war on terror. Nothing could be more morally
sound than cutting Gaza's power."