by Sara Yoheved Rigler
How an 8-year-old is holding down the borders of Israel.
Two boys race into the elevator of Jerusalem's Renaissance Hotel an hour before Shabbat. Thin and dark-complexioned, speaking Hebrew, wearing shorts and T-shirts, and holding plastic bowls filled with unshelled sunflower seeds (Israel's ubiquitous snack), the boys do not look like typical guests at a five-star hotel. In Hebrew, I ask them where they are from.
"Sderot," is their one-word reply.
"Who's paying for your Shabbat in Jerusalem?"
"ZAKA."
Sderot, of course, is the Israeli city of 20,000 Jews located just 900 meters from the Gaza Strip. A more or less constant bombardment of Kassam rockets from Gaza has killed 12 people, some of them children, and injured many hundreds. A few months ago a 10-year-old boy lost his leg in a Kassam attack.
Thousands of the city's residents suffer from Post Traumatic Stress, including endemic bedwetting among children. PTS is actually a misnomer, as the traumatic condition of being sitting ducks for lethal rocket attacks is present and ongoing, not past.
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