Minister of Construction and Housing Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) visited the southern city of Sderot Thursday in order to see up close the damage caused by rockets that Gaza terrorists fired at the city on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The minister visited the kindergarten that was directly hit by a Kassam rocket at an unknown time during the Pesach holiday, when children were still on holiday, and saw the hole in the kindergarten's ceiling. He spoke to the teacher, Reut, who told him that the rocket strike was only discovered after the holiday, and called the event "a great miracle that could have ended in a terrible disaster."
Minister Ariel said that his advice to the government is to follow the Jewish precept that says – "when a person rises up to kill you, kill him first."
"The residents of the South must not return to a reality of fear," he said. "We can see clearly that the best defense is offense."
The minister toured Sderot's various fortifications and received updates on fortification that is currently being carried out. The fortification is meant to afford residents some kind of protection against terror rockets, which came to a temporary halt after the IDF threatened an invasion on Gaza in November.