--- description: "You are now in a very rare moment," says Pnina Ragolsky, "because you can hear only the birds singing." On a late spring Sunday afternoon... title: Caught in the Gaza Crossfire image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) # Caught in the Gaza Crossfire by [Phil Zabriskie](/author/phil-zabriskie/) Jun 16, 2006 4:00 AM CUT by [Phil Zabriskie](/author/phil-zabriskie/) Jun 16, 2006 4:00 AM CUT “You are now in a very rare moment,” says Pnina Ragolsky, “because you can hear only the birds singing.” On a late spring Sunday afternoon in the Israeli village of Netiv Ha’asara, the familiar notes of conflict — periodic incoming rocket fire and the alerts that attend it, the more sustained outgoing artillery barrages — have fallen silent. But the peace won’t last. A few hours later, loudspeakers emit the booming call — “shachar adom” \[red dawn\] — that warns residents a rocket has been launched from Gaza. They have 20 seconds to get to their bomb shelters. “It’s a routine,” says Pnina, 59\. “Unfortunately, we are getting used to it.” Five kilometers away, in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, Safia and Mohammed Ghaben are also accustomed to leading lives under siege, to the thuds and booms of artillery shells fired into Gaza by the Israeli army in retaliation for rockets launched by Palestinian militants toward villages such as Netiv Ha’asara. Though Israel says the barrages are aimed at punishing militants, not civilians, the shelling is a constant source of fear. And for some, like the Ghabens, the sound of artillery discharges is a reminder of an incurable pain. When Israeli settlers and soldiers pulled out of the Gaza Strip last August, many people on both sides dared to think that tranquility would follow. But since Hamas was voted into power last January, international aid to the Palestinian Authority has been suspended and hope for negotiations between the two sides has faded. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged to withdraw from parts of the West Bank, and to complete construction of a security wall to separate Israel from the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the near-daily exchanges of rockets and artillery between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have left civilians on both sides caught in the crossfire. All of this was the case even before the events of June 8, when an Israeli air strike killed Jamal Abu Samhadana, a leading militant in Gaza, and the next day, when seven Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 30 wounded by an explosion while they picnicked on the beach near Beit Lahiya. The aftermath of the beach explosion was filmed by a local cameraman, whose pictures of a young girl wailing for her fatally wounded relatives generated intense scrutiny. The source of the beach blast is being fiercely-debated — Palestinians say it was an incoming Israeli artillery shell, but the Israeli military denies the charge, claiming that it was possibly a mine or some other explosive buried on the beach by Palestinians. But there is no doubt that the event has had unmistakable and immediate consequences, most notably the subsequent announcement by Hamas that its military wing was abandoning a cease-fire it had largely held to since early 2005\. Since then, it has re-entered the fray with a volley of rockets, raising the frightening prospect that sustained violence could start anew — the kind of violence that has already irrevocably marked the lives of the Ragolskys and the Ghabens, along with many others. Separated by fences and flags, the two families live in vastly different circumstances, as cursory glances at the serene Israeli communities and the densely-packed Gazan townships make clear. And yet, like all Israelis and Palestinians, the families are linked by a conflict that governs the rhythm of daily life on both sides. They ask similar questions of themselves, their leaders and their ostensible enemies. Both have suffered grave losses that haunt them to this day. While others cast such losses as noble sacrifices, or simply collateral damage, families like the Ragolskys and the Ghabens live with the consequences. Pnina Ragolsky was relocated once from the Sinai peninsula in 1982 as a condition of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace accord; she does not want to move again. In Netiv Ha’asara, she and her husband, Amnon, built a lovely home and raised three children. Until last year, they planned to ease into retirement while the children took over their agricultural business. The conflict was never far away, but Israeli settlements and troops in northern Gaza buffered them from the worst of it. A house for Ilan, 29, was under construction. Amir, then 24, lived with his girlfriend, Dana, 22, behind his parents’ place, in the same thin-walled structure the Ragolskys inhabited when they first arrived. A few years ago, Palestinian militants in Gaza began launching crude, homemade Qassam rockets or mortars across the border, initially causing little damage or the Ragolskys much concern — until July 14 of last year. Amir was at home that afternoon when Dana returned from classes. As she stepped inside, a mortar pierced the roof near the front of the house, sending shrapnel and chunks of wall flying. Amir was knocked over but remained conscious. Yossi, a cousin living next door, raced over with his 5-year-old daughter. Pnina, a trained psychological counselor, was driving back from Tel Aviv, where she’d been lecturing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops on handling the removal of the settlers. Her phone rang. A neighbor said something had happened. “I called my husband,” she says. “And he shouts: ‘Dana is dead! Dana is dead!'” The house is still standing — a softball-sized hole in the roof, wires hanging from the ceiling — but, like the Ragolskys and Dana’s family, it’s not the same. Amir left a month later, traveling in Asia for a time, then working in Amsterdam and now New York City. Ilan moved to a village 20 km north; the house meant for him remains half-finished. Yossi’s daughters needed counseling, particularly the 5-year-old. “All my plans,” says Pnina, “all my dreams of having a farm here, and when I get older, my family around me,” were put in jeopardy. Beyond heartbreak, she says, Netiv Ha’asara’s sense of security was shattered. “People understood you can die from this.” Pnina imagines someone saying, “It’s not so awful, you can live with it,” because most missiles land in uninhabited areas or the sea. “But you can’t,” she says, “because you are all the time under threat.” In April the Israeli army began responding to Palestinian rocket attacks more aggressively, firing up to 300 155-mm artillery shells back at Gaza when fired upon by Qassams; it even reduced the required distance between a target and civilian areas or homes from 300 m to 100 m (with ammunition customarily lethal up to 50 m from impact, and potentially lethal well beyond that). Since that time, it has fired thousands of shells into Gaza, which, Brigadier General Aviv Kohavi, commander of the idf’s Gaza Division, said several weeks ago, has reduced the number of rocket attacks and rendered them less accurate. But for Israelis living nearby, says Pnina, life “became like hell.” The outgoing barrages terrified people, especially children. Some families have left. Several more, primarily those with young children, may follow. And the Qassams continued, a few on some days, one or none on others. Over the past week, however, Palestinian militants have been targeting the Israeli town of Sderot with scores of rockets, wounding several people and making life miserable for residents. At the same time, the IDF, as of June 15, has not resumed artillery fire as it investigates the beach incident, leaving many Israeli residents under attack to feel the IDF is not doing enough to protect them. Pnina knows that feeling all too well. And yet she is also aware others are suffering too. She says when she speaks to Palestinian friends inside Gaza, she tells them, “‘Stop the rockets.’ They say, ‘We can’t. Someone tried to prevent the terrorists from firing rockets and was shot.'” She adds: “The artillery is hurting us, but I think they suffer more than we do.” Standing in the rubble of what used to be her living room, Safia Ghaben, 36, stares into the corner. “We were right here,” she says. The shelling started early on April 10 — several weeks before TIME visited the Ghabens — and again in the afternoon, driving families inside. Safia locked herself, nine of her children and another neighborhood girl in their sturdy, two-floor house, which sits in a patch of farmland ringed by homes and apartments. As shells landed on either side, they scurried from room to room, until a round landed right on top of them. Hadil Ghaben, 8, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Safia’s other children — the eldest 18, the youngest 15 months — sustained multiple shrapnel wounds. Shrapnel also lodged in Safia’s stomach but could not be removed because she was then seven months pregnant. Like the Ragolskys, the Ghabens’ case is as bad as it could be, though such tragedies are not uncommon in northern Gaza. In January 2005, an Israeli shell killed seven children as they picked strawberries — the children were related both to the Ghabens and to the family that lost several members to the June 9 beach incident. In late April, another wounded seven people, including two children. Two men, 57 and 60, were killed on consecutive days in early May. In most such cases, Israel expresses regret and asserts it was targeting Qassam sites. The military’s position that it does not bear responsibility for what happened has been contested by Palestinian officials and an investigative team from Human Rights Watch that has been in Gaza this week. But until recently, the IDF has held responsible those militants who fire the rockets, as well as those who own or live near land from which they’re fired — a policy human-rights groups decry as a form of collective punishment and a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Qassams can be launched in minutes; culprits can outrun the response. The shelling is designed not only to kill militants, but also to “instill in people the sense that they have something to lose, in the short-term and the long run,” said Kohavi, the army commander. “If they are shooting Qassams from the area, property might be damaged.” Israeli security officials are also gravely concerned that miltants are acquiring longer-range, more accurate Kaythusha rockets. Even before Hamas’ military wing abandoned the cease-fire, its politicians who control the Palestinian government called attacks on Israelis “self-defense,” and refused to crack down on those who use rocket launchers. Though the IDF has suspended its attacks in the wake of the beach incident, it seems highly unlikely that the Hamas-led government would try to stop Islamic Jihad and others, including their own military wing, from launching rockets; the IDF’s air strikes, for one thing, have continued, most recently this past week, when two missiles killed two Islamic Jihad militants — who had with them several Kaythushas — along with seven civilians Some locals in Beit Layhiya — who fear reprisals if named — have wanted the Hamas-led Ministry of Interior to deploy police in places used as launch sites, but Ministry spokesman Khalid Abu Hilal said, “Whoever wants freedom and an independent homeland has to pay a price for it.” The Ghabens have paid. Safia is bereft. Mohammed, 40, can’t summon the energy to work, so his taxi sits idle. Their children, Safia says, repeatedly ask, “How did we survive?” They have recurring nightmares, as does she, including one in which she’s covered in dust and can’t breathe. Despite their sorrows, and despite recent events, the Ragolskys and the Ghabens try to carry on. Pnina hopes that Amir will one day return and attend university. She says that people in Netiv Ha’asara still have parties, celebrate anniversaries and take vacations, trying “to live a normal life in an abnormal place.” But now, “There’s always a shadow on whatever you do.” Unable to afford rent on an apartment, Safia and Mohammed were forced to move back into the shell of their old house. Instead of walls, they have curtains. Mohammed says the only help they get comes from the relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres. And the recent spike in violence does not suggest that life will get better any time soon. Still, in April, after Safia lamented their struggles to stay upbeat around their children, her eyes brightened when she said her unborn baby seemed healthy. On May 17, the Ghabens had a little boy. 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