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Israel’s Sapir College, affiliated with Ben Gurion University, bustling with more than 8,000 students, located at the edge of the southern Israeli city of Sdeort, had take steps of late to dissociate its image from Sderot, which has been under missile attack over the past seven years.
The radio ads for students to visit Sapir on its annual open-house day were devoid of the word Sderotâ€.
A news item sourced in the Sapir College that ran on the Voice of Israel radio news on February 20th mentioned that the Sapir College was located near Ashkelon, Israel’s nearby southern port city.
Some recent Sapir College maps do not mention the word “Sderotâ€Â.
All this in a seeming attempt to distract the public from associating Sapir College with the missile attacks on Sderot,
On Wednesday, at 3:30 p.m., however, Sapir’s image was changed forever
Roni Yichia, a 47 year old Adult Education student at the Sapir College, father of four children, was killed on the Sapir campus by a direct hit from a missile fired from Gaza which also wounded five other students on the Sapir campus..
Only one hour before, a factory dining hall in Sderot was also hit by a missile, causing the roof to cave in completely- ten minutes after th150 workers had filed out, after completing their lunch break.
A total of 44 Kassam rockets were launched at southern Israel Wednesday afternoon from the Gaza Strip.
Sitting on the balcony of the Sderot Media Center which overlooks the modest center of Sderot, this reporter witnessed Sderot citizens erupt into panic every few minutes on Wednesday afternoon, as people scampered for cover each time the “color redâ€Â siren was fired.
Earlier in the day, an Israel air strike in southern Gaza had killed five Hamas terrorists, including a senior rocket engineer and a regional missile squad commander, according to the Hamas spokesman..
Palestinian sources estimated that the bus had been under surveillance since it left its base at the UNRWA United Nations refugee camp at Jabalya in Northern Gaza.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources in Gaza also reported night that an Islamic Jihad member, Zaki Abu-Zeid was killed in an IDF strike at the UNRWA Al-Bureij refugee camp, located in central Gaza..
The Israel Defense Forces spokesman confirmed these attacks, saying they had been conducted in cooperation with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and was targeting armed terrorists
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a state visit to Japan, said that a war was being waged in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, and vowed that “no one in Hamas, not the low-level officials nor the highest echelon, will be immune against this war.”
However, in answer to a reporter’s question, the prime minister added that “I don’t recall even once speaking about a large-scale ground operation in the [Gaza] Strip.”
U.K. Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells issued a response Wednesday following the deadly attack saying “we unreservedly condemn the barrage of rockets on southern Israel that has left one man dead and several others injured. I offer my deepest sympathies to the family.”
“There can be no justification for the almost daily rocket and mortar attacks on Sderot and the surrounding area. We call on all Palestinian factions to stop attacks, including rocket strikes, against innocent civiliansâ€Â
However, Howells used the opportunity to scold Israel to “l show restraint in the face of these attacks,”
“The U.K. offers its full support to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders who reiterated their commitment to the peace process at Annapolis and in negotiations held since. Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with the full support of the international community, must find a way to restore calm for the sake of the civilian populations on both sides,” Howells concluded.
A statement issued by a PR firm that works closely with the Israeli government, was entitled, “Palestinian Rocket Kills Israeli Student – Israel Still Committed to Peace Despite Latest Attackâ€Â
That PR statement went on to day that “More than 800 rockets and mortar shells have been fired from Gaza into Israel this year. That amounts to more than a third of the 2,300 fired at Israel during all of 2007. Since August 2005, when Israel withdrew all of its citizens and military from the Gaza Strip in hopes of paving the way for an independent Palestinian state, terrorists in Gaza have fired more than 4,500 rockets and mortars at Israel…. Despite the ongoing rocket fire, Israel continues to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, including 385,361 tons of food, medicine and raw materials and more than 29.3 million gallons (112 million liters) of fuelâ€Â
The PR statement concluded that “Israel also remains committed to the peace process with the Palestinian Authority. On January 28, 2008, Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, “The goal is to end the conflict between our two nations, our two peoples, by the creation or giving the answer to the national aspirations of the Palestinians by creating a Palestinian state.â€Â
This PR statement, which reflects Israeli government policy, did not seem to dwell on the contradiction of an Israeli government policy aimed at the creation of an armed and sovereign “independent Palestinian stateâ€Â, after Palestinians used land ceded to them in Gaza as a launching pad for lethal attacks against Israel.
