When I arrived, one of the locals led me to where the rocket had landed in the courtyard of three apartment buildings lined up in a “U” formation with the courtyard in the center. Most of the windows in all three building were blown out in the blast. I was horrified to learn that a ten-year-old boy had suffered severe shrapnel wounds in the attack.
Dozens of emergency services personnel were still on the scene, and media crews, both local and international, were covering the story. While four shock victims had already been transported to the hospital, another three were found while I was there. I learned that in most cases shock victims, especially the elderly, are unable to turn to anyone for help following an attack and sometimes can suffer for hours before receiving treatment.
After snapping some pictures of the damage, I noticed a commotion ensuing under one of the apartment’s ground floor overhangs near where the Kassam had landed. There, resting on the cement near a blood-spattered wall, was a small piece of bloodied bone and a chunk of flesh from the young victim.
One of the crisis aid workers was guarding the bone as if his life depended on it. While he did his best to prevent onlookers from taking photos, I managed to snap one. If a picture says a thousand words, I thought that this particular shot would say a million.
After a few more minutes spent capturing images from the day’s events, I got back into my car and started driving home to Jerusalem. It has become my own personal ritual when I leave Sderot and am out of Kassam range to call my wife to let her know I’m safe. While I made it out of Sderot unharmed and was headed back to the relative quiet of Jerusalem, my experience that day truly allowed me to empathize with the residents of Sderot, who for the most part don’t have the option of just getting into a car and escaping their appalling reality.