The “Forum of Ashkelon’s Security” was founded to raise the awareness of city residents about security-related issues - specifically, how to deal with a rocket attack when Kassams explode around them.
A rocket attack launched from northern Gaza Tuesday morning sent a Kassam flying into an open area outside the port city, traumatizing Ashkelon residents who until this year were unused to missiles landing close to their homes.
“We have discovered, to our deep regret, that Ashkelon residents do not know what to do when rockets fall on the city,” said Forum director Itamar Shimoni in an interview with the Ynet news service.
The recent spate of rocket attacks over the past several weeks has left Ashkelon residents feeling unprepared, he said. “The residents here [now are living] in fear, and that is why we decided to establish a forum that will instruct them on how to act during an emergency.”
Some 50,000 leaflets with instructions on what to do during a Kassam rocket attack are being prepared for distribution to residents, Shimoni said, and defense officials will be invited to address members at forum meetings.
Concrete Plans for the Threat to City’s Schools
The deepest concern expressed by the organization’s director was related to the lack of preparation for attacks on the city’s schools. “Some kindergartens don’t contain secure rooms and the schools do not have an adequate amount of secure areas,” he said.
The Home Front Command has come up with a plan, however, to protect the city’s schoolchildren in case of an attack – concrete tables in the classrooms. City sources said the idea was “very strange” but were willing to consider it. School administrators were not as tolerant.
“During exercises it was explained to us that we should hide under the table,” said an Ashkelon school principal last month. “That’s really a joke, to hide under the table. I believe we simply need to pray and hope for a miracle and that it will be good, because as things stand there is nothing that we can do at school,” she said.
Newer schools in the city have acceptable shelters; older schools in the southern section of Ashkelon, where several rockets have landed, have much smaller shelters, in less-than-optimal condition. Shelters in the schools are no panacea, however. Officials have expressed concern that students don’t have enough time to get from the classrooms to the shelter in the few seconds between the sounding of the early alert system and the time the rocket hits.
As rocket attacks intensified this month, residents of Sderot and surrounding communities in the western Negev continued to protest the government’s failure to complete its promised fortification of the school buildings in the region.
For Ashkelon, the issue is relatively new, but equally frightening. One week ago, five Kassam rockets slammed into various targets in and around the city. One rocket hit a school and two others hit the city’s southern industrial zone. Two residents were treated for shock by Magen David Adom medics and subsequently evacuated to the city's Barzilai Hospital.
Because there are many more schools in the southern coastal city than in smaller communities such as Sderot, officials have said it will be impossible to fortify every educational building.
A rocket attack launched from northern Gaza Tuesday morning sent a Kassam flying into an open area outside the port city, traumatizing Ashkelon residents who until this year were unused to missiles landing close to their homes.
“We have discovered, to our deep regret, that Ashkelon residents do not know what to do when rockets fall on the city,” said Forum director Itamar Shimoni in an interview with the Ynet news service.
The recent spate of rocket attacks over the past several weeks has left Ashkelon residents feeling unprepared, he said. “The residents here [now are living] in fear, and that is why we decided to establish a forum that will instruct them on how to act during an emergency.”
Some 50,000 leaflets with instructions on what to do during a Kassam rocket attack are being prepared for distribution to residents, Shimoni said, and defense officials will be invited to address members at forum meetings.
Concrete Plans for the Threat to City’s Schools
The deepest concern expressed by the organization’s director was related to the lack of preparation for attacks on the city’s schools. “Some kindergartens don’t contain secure rooms and the schools do not have an adequate amount of secure areas,” he said.
The Home Front Command has come up with a plan, however, to protect the city’s schoolchildren in case of an attack – concrete tables in the classrooms. City sources said the idea was “very strange” but were willing to consider it. School administrators were not as tolerant.
“During exercises it was explained to us that we should hide under the table,” said an Ashkelon school principal last month. “That’s really a joke, to hide under the table. I believe we simply need to pray and hope for a miracle and that it will be good, because as things stand there is nothing that we can do at school,” she said.
Newer schools in the city have acceptable shelters; older schools in the southern section of Ashkelon, where several rockets have landed, have much smaller shelters, in less-than-optimal condition. Shelters in the schools are no panacea, however. Officials have expressed concern that students don’t have enough time to get from the classrooms to the shelter in the few seconds between the sounding of the early alert system and the time the rocket hits.
As rocket attacks intensified this month, residents of Sderot and surrounding communities in the western Negev continued to protest the government’s failure to complete its promised fortification of the school buildings in the region.
For Ashkelon, the issue is relatively new, but equally frightening. One week ago, five Kassam rockets slammed into various targets in and around the city. One rocket hit a school and two others hit the city’s southern industrial zone. Two residents were treated for shock by Magen David Adom medics and subsequently evacuated to the city's Barzilai Hospital.
Because there are many more schools in the southern coastal city than in smaller communities such as Sderot, officials have said it will be impossible to fortify every educational building.