Still, family says they plan to leave Sderot. ‘I don’t want my daughter’s mental health destroyed already at 9-months-old.’
By Ben Rappaport, United with Israel
A rocket launched from Gaza by terrorists on Friday hit a family home in the nearby Israeli city of Sderot, causing damage. Miraculously, the family – a mother, father, and 9-month-old baby girl, were not harmed.
“My daughter and I were sleeping in the bomb shelter, my husband was in the living room. A series of rockets were fired, then there was a loud ‘boom,'” mother Sherry Vazana recounted on Friday to ynet, adding that the power went off and the entire living room was damaged.
“I was always afraid this would happen.”
Despite the miracle, the parents say they don’t want to raise their daughter in Sderot, where the next rocket attack could always be just around the corner. “As far as we’re concerned, this means leaving Sderot now. I don’t want to raise a daughter in this situation and destroy her mental health already at nine months old.”
Sderot is one kilometer from the Gaza border. The town’s 30,000 residents have 7-15 seconds to reach a safe room when a when a warning siren is triggered. Since 2004, thousands of rockets have landed on the city, killing 11 Israelis.
A 2022 study by the Jerusalem-based Herzog Hospital Psychotrauma Center found that 45 percent of Sderot’s children between the ages 2-6 suffer from trauma.
In recent days, dozens of rockets have been fired into both southern and northern Israel.
Pesach Benson, TPS contributed to this report.