RISHON LEZION, Israel — This is what life is like forty-five minutes south of where I live:
Imagine that you are 18 years old. You have just completed high school and in a few months you will enter the army. In the meantime, you spend your time going out with friends and working to save some money – like any other typical teenager in Israel.
One afternoon, you come home exhausted from work and collapse into bed for a nap. Suddenly, in the middle of your nap you find yourself waking up to the sound of glass shattering – all over your back.
It takes you a moment to realize that the window above your bed has exploded and that shards of glass lie everywhere. Your dad comes racing in, picks you up and carries you outside to safety.
The Sderot Media Center Community Treatment Theater performed Children of Qassam Avenue in Jerusalem this week, and I would have gone if I had known about the play. As the above YouTube clips shows, the performance is a group of teenage girls showing what life is like under a constant rain of rocket fire from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. As the new school year has begun, principals have been repairing and upgrading their bomb shelters and related buildings.
Even though the number of deaths and injuries have been low, a generation of children is growing up with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Related: Letter from Israel: The Gaza Conflict
