CHILLING CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MOSSAD AGENT

CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-MOSSAD AGENT

Excerpt from Victor Ostrovsky's, "By way of deception" NOTE: Needless to say, the Israeli Lobby has demanded (and gotten) a total ban on this book in all major bookstore chains, while pro-Israeli experts have trashed it at every opportunity.Ostrovsky's book is available only online at places like Amazon Revealing the facts as I know them from my vantage point of four years spent inside the Mossad was by no means an easy task. Coming from an ardent Zionist background, I had been taught that the state of Israel was incapable of misconduct. That we were the David in the unending struggle against the ever-growing Goliath. That there was no one out there to protect us but ourselves - a feeling reinforced by the Holocaust survivors who lived among us. We, the new generation of Israelites, the resurrected nation on its own land after more than two thousand years of exile, were entrusted with the fate of the nation as a whole. The commanders of our army were called champions, not generals. Our leaders were captains at the helm of a great ship. I was elated when I was chosen and granted the privilege to join what I considered to be the elite team of the Mossad. But it was the twisted ideals and self-centered pragmatism that I encountered inside the Mossad, coupled with this so-called team's greed, lust, and total lack of respect for human life, that motivated me to tell this story. It is out of love for Israel as a free and just country that I am laying my life on the line by so doing, facing up to those who took it upon themselves to turn the Zionist dream into the present-day nightmare. The Mossad, being the intelligence body entrusted with the responsibility of plotting the course for the leaders at the helm of the nation, has betrayed that trust. Plotting on its own behalf, and for petty, self-serving reasons, it has set the nation on a collision course with all-out war. One of the main themes of this book is Victor's belief that Mossad is out of control, that even the prime minister, although ostensibly in charge, has no real authority over its actions ... Read More

Till the birth of Israel & Zionism Jews were patronised by most of Muslim rulers.

Once upon a time, a widely circulated Jewish document described Islam as "an act of God's Mercy". Also, Jews in the near East, north Africa and Spain threw their support behind advancing Muslim Arab armies. No, these aren't fairy tales or propaganda. The relationship between Muslims and Jews really was that cooperative and marked by peaceful coexistence.

Just ask Khalid Siddiqi of the Islamic Education and Information Center in San Jose, California where he also teaches Islamic Studies and Arabic at Chabot College and Ohlone College. Siddiqi notes that the first quote above is from S. D. Goitein's book Jews and Arabs. The second is from Merlin Swartz's 'The Position of Jews in Arab lands following the rise of Islam' (reprinted from The Muslim World. Hartford Seminary Foundation LXI1970).

Swartz also says the Muslim Arab conquest marked the dawn of a new era. Those forces that had led to the progressive isolation and disruption of Jewish life were not only checked they were dramatically reversed.

In an interview with Sound Vision, Siddiqi gave numerous examples of Jews flourishing under Muslim rule in places like Spain, Morocco, North African in general and various parts of the Middle East.

Siddiqi points out that Islam as a religion has given specific guidelines for the followers of Islam to base their relationship with any non-Muslim. These include People of Scripture, like the Jews, people who belong to other religions, and even atheists. Non-Muslims must be treated on the basis of Birr (kindness) and Qist (justice), as referred to Surah 60 verse 8 of the Quran.

It started at the time of the Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) The peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Jews began at the time of the Prophet.

Siddiqi notes that the Jews welcomed the Prophet when he arrived in Madinah at the time of Hijrah (migration), along with the rest of the city's inhabitants. But the Prophet had begun the step towards good relations with Jewish and other communities in Madinah even before getting there. After receiving an invitation to Madinah from one of the city's tribes that had accepted Islam, the Prophet signed treaties with the city's Jewish, Christian and polytheist tribes before he arrived there.

These treaties clearly laid out responsibilities of each of the parties. It was based on these that the Prophet established the Mithaq al Madinah, the constitution of Madinah. Read More

The Jewish Inquisition: An Eyewitness Account

In Part 45, when we discussed the Crusades, we covered the war of the Church against the Muslims in the Middle East. Now we turn to the war of the Church against Muslims in Europe. This war went on for quite some time in fits and starts—from the time the Muslim Moors arrived in Spain in 711. It took a long time for the Christians to vanquish them. The first Muslim stronghold to fall was Toledo in 1085; the last was Granada in 1492. As the Christian re-conquest gained momentum, Jews in these newly re-conquered Christians territories began to suffer from increasingly harsher persecutions. In their blood-thirsty vengeance against the Muslims, the Spanish Christians included the Jews, whom they put in the category of infidels. In 14th century Barcelona, for example, the whole Jewish community was murdered by a rioting mob. First given shelter by some Christians, these Jews were pressured to convert. Those who did not were refused protection. Writes Professor B. Netanyahu in his 1,400-page work,The Origins of the Inquisition, quoting an eyewitness account of the time: “Those of them who refused to accept baptism were immediately slain, and their corpses, stretched in the streets and the squares, offered a horrendous spectacle.” (p. 159) Just how many Jews converted in these forced mass conversions that accompanied the Christian conquest of Spain? Estimates rage between tens of thousands to as many as 600,000. (SeeThe Origins of the Inquisition, p. 1095.) Many of those who converted did so only outwardly, continuing to practice Judaism in secret. In due time, the Christians caught on to these phony conversions and decided to root out the heretics. THE SPANISH INQUISITION The Inquisition we are going to cover now is the Spanish Inquisition, which began officially by papal bull issued by Pope Sixtus IV on November 1, 1478. (We should note, however, that the very first Inquisition actually took place in 1233 under orders from Pope Gregory IX to combat a group of French-Christian heretics called “Albigenses.” This first Inquisition was relatively mild and did not as a rule sentence people to death. Not so the Spanish Inquisition which was directed against Jewish heretics.) Unlike its earlier version, the Spanish Inquisition sought to punish Jews who had converted to Christianity but were not really “sincere” in their conversions. There is a great deal of irony in this. First you tell people they have to convert or die, then, when they do convert, you decide to kill them anyway because their conversions are not “sincere.” There was another reason for the Inquisition, which had little to do with the sincerity of conversions. Once Jews converted to Christianity they had an open access to the playing field, economically and politically. And, of course, they prospered mightily. That engendered a lot of hostility from the Christians - a pattern we have seen in Jewish history ever since the enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians. Read More

Is Palestine now Germany for Israel? Historical quotes of Jewish leaders.

The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany. Fourteen million Jews stand together as one man, to declare war against Germany. The Jewish wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock exchange, the merchant his commerce and the pauper his pitiful shed in order to join together in a holy war against Hitler's people. -Daily Express, March 24, 1933

"All Jews world wide -- declared war on the Third Reich."(The London Daily Express, Front Page Story, 3/24/1933).

"Judea declares War on Germany."(Daily Express, March 24, 1934)

"The millions of Jews who live in America, England and France, North and South Africa, and, not to forget those in Palestine, are determined to bring the war of annihilation against Germany to its final end."(The Jewish newspaper, Central Blad Voor Israeliten in Nederland, September 13, 1939)

"Germany is the enemy of Judaism and must be pursued with deadly hatred. The goal of Judaism of today is: a merciless campaign against all German peoples and the complete destruction of the nation. We demand a complete blockade of trade, the importation of raw materials stopped, and retaliation towards every German, woman and child."(Jewish professor A. Kulischer, October, 1937)

"Kill the Germans, wherever you find them! Every German is our moral enemy. Have no mercy on women, children, or the aged! Kill every German -- wipe them out!"(Llya Ehrenburg, Glaser, p. 111).

"Step by step, I have arrived at the conviction that the aims of Communism in Europe are sinister and fatal. At the Nuremberg Trials, I, together with my Russian colleague, condemned Nazi Aggression and Terror. I believe now that Hitler and the German People did not want war. But we, {England}, declared war on Germany, intent on destroying it, in accordance with our principle of Balance of Power, and we were encouraged by the 'Americans'{Jews} around Roosevelt. We ignored Hitler's pleading, not to enter into war. Now we are forced to realize that Hitler was right. He offered us the co-operation of Germany: instead, since 1945, we have been facing the immense power of the Soviet Empire. I feel ashamed and humiliated to see that the aims we accused Hitler of, are being relentless pursued now, only under a different label."(Ashamed and Humiliated The British Attorney General, Sir Hartle Shawcross, said in a speech at Stourbridge, March 16/84 (AP))

"Our fight against Germany must be carried to the limit of what is possible. Israel has been attacked. Let us, therefore, defend Israel! Against the awakened Germany, we put an awakened Israel. And the world will defend us."(Jewish author Pierre Creange in his book

Epitres aux Juifs, 1938) Read More

The Nakba anniversary: Land, myths and the Zionist 'miracle'

Whenever the anniversary of the Zionist rape of Palestine comes, Arab memory in general, and Egyptian memory in particular, recalls images of Palestine under occupation or the British Mandate letting hordes of rapists of all nationalities pass to its lands. Nothing unified those hordes except the Zionist dream of raping Palestine. The British Mandate gave them public lands and granted them all forms of assistance with the consent and support of the US and the West in general. It allowed them to have the most advanced weapons to form criminal gangs for intimidating and expelling the Arabs and committing heinous massacres against them. Memory also recalls Zionist and Western myths around Zionist superiority that established an "advanced state" in a developing region and the myth, which is more false still and mean-minded, about Palestinians selling their lands, as if Zionists established Israel on lands they bought, not through raping the land, state and rights of another people. They have transformed a large part of its people into the homeless in their own lands, or in the lands of other neighbouring Arab countries and the world in general. While Arab states offered one concession after another in an attempt to deal with the colonial de facto reality, building a peace based on co-existence and to keep what has remained of the Palestinian people's rights after the Nakba )or catastrophe(, Israeli authorities practiced, during a quarter of a century of negotiations since the start of 1990s, a policy of prevarication and evasion of the moment of truth. This moment of truth requires either the acceptance of a democratic state without any religious or racial discrimination, and ending the Zionist occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, or accepting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip based on the UN Partition Resolution, to which the Arabs made another concession, replacing that formula with the lands before the aggression of June 1967. Read More

Gaza op spurs Italian call for 'Nuremberg for Israel' trial

A petition by academics, describing Israel's 'slow genocide' of Palestinians, is one of many signs - including incendiary slogans, swastikas and vandalism - that reflect anti-Semitic undercurrents in Italy. MILAN, Italy – An online petition posted recently by hundreds of Italians during Israel's operation in Gaza calls for creation of “an international tribunal," in which the State of Israel and its people will be put on trial for the “slow genocide of the entire [Palestinian] people.” Signed by 525 Italians, most of them academics, the petition does not target just Israel Defense Forces' commanders or the government of Benjamin Netanyahu: The signatories want “the whole State of Israel” and its “racist society” to appear in an international court, in a Nuremberg-like trial, for war crimes. And not just due to Operation Protective Edge, but because of events in "the past, the present and the foreseeable future.” This petition is but one example of the increasingly sharp criticism in Italy of Operation Protective Edge, criticism which some are saying is tainted by anti-Semitism. Indeed, the petitioners literally called for a “Nuremberg for Israel” – a reference to the military tribunals created by the Allied forces after World War II, in which 24 German officials were tried for war crimes. The document, whose intent is ostensibly symbolic, has been widely publicized online. It originally appeared on a small academic website, Historia Magistra, and later ended up in the online edition of Il Manifesto, a respected left-leaning newspaper. The petition is titled “Noi Accusiamo” (We Accuse) after Émile Zola’s famous "J’Accuse," an open letter published on the front page of a newspaper in France, denouncing the widespread anti-Semitism there in the 1890s, sparked by the Dreyfus Affair (in which a Jewish officer in the French army was unjustly convicted of treason). Read More

Hamas editor rakes up "Blood Libel" bogey

Once again, Arab media is bringing up the centuries old "matzah blood libel", that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to make matzah for Passover. The blood libel originated in 1144 with the fabricated story of William of Norwich, England and is continuously used by Arabs. In the latest incident, the editor of Hamas's paper Al-Risalah, Wisam Afifa, associated the death of Mohammed Abu-Khder, the Palestinian Arab teen whose body was found on Wednesday in Jerusalem, with the blood libel. The editorial was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In it, Afifa claimed that, just as the Jews once killed non-Jews to use their blood for matzahs, today they still engage in "sacred rites" of vengeance. He further claimed that Israel has adopted the ideology of the Nazis, who distinguished between superior and inferior races. "The settlers used the body of 17-year-old Mohammed Hussein Abu Khder, from Shuafat in northern Jerusalem, to carry out their sacred [act of] vengeance by torturing him and burning him to death, in a crime reminiscent of their holy matzos that became part of their history of betrayal and murder – for the culture of violence and blood grew among the Jews to such an extent that it seeped into their sacred rites and prayers," he wrote.. "By holy matzos, I mean those matzos mixed with human blood, the blood of gentiles, namely of the non-Jewish other, [which they baked] to celebrate the Jewish holiday called Passover," he continued. "According to historical accounts, they used to murder Christians, preferably children under ten, collect their blood, and then hand it over to a rabbi, so he would mix it into the holiday matzos, and then serve them to the believers, to devour on their holiday. "These ancient rites are echoed in modern ones, whereby [the Jews] sanctify the blood of [their fellow] Jews, who are considered humans of the first level, and disregard the blood of Palestinians. This obliges [Palestinian] President Mahmoud Abbas to define and classify the martyred boy Abu Khder, after he [Abbas] expressed his rage to the Muslim countries' foreign ministers [at the June 18, 2014 Jeddah conference] and said that the three settlers who had been kidnapped in the West Bank were human beings like us and we must search for them and return them, thus meeting [the Israeli] demand to endow these three settlers with a halo of divinity and of lofty humanity and describe them as 'exceptional human beings," wrote Afifa. "The unjust world – from the U.S. and the EU to the president of the Palestinian Authority – greatly lamented the death of the three settlers, but it does not lament the death of the Palestinian boy Abu Khdeir, since he belongs to the group whose blood is not [considered] sacred, according to the international community's classification of human, ethnic and political groups, which places Israel high on the ladder and the Palestinians low," he charged. "The international community's double standard regarding Israeli and Palestinian blood revives the heritage of the Nazi theory. The Jews, with their criminal behavior, adopt the vision of Hitler, which was based on classifying people into superior races, like the Aryan race, versus inferior races, like the blacks, Arabs and Jews, [and held that] the superiority of the white race over all other peoples entitles it to many absolute rights, such as the right to rule over other peoples," said Afifa. "Similarly, we see that Israel believes that the superiority of the Jewish race endows it with the absolute right to occupy, build settlements, take vengeance and spill blood. That is how they baked their sacred bread in the past, and that is how they hold their sacred rites of vengeance in the present, whose victim [this time] was the boy Abu Khder."

Counter view: Real motive behind Gaza bombing.

The pretext for bombing and shelling Gaza was the death of three Israeli teenagers allegedly killed by Hamas.

‘Operation Protective Edge (OPE)  directed against Gaza is reminiscent of the infamous 2001 Dagan Plan entitled “Operation Justified Vengeance” in which the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians had been envisaged and foreseen by IDF military planners.

The deaths are then used to muster the support of the Israeli public as well as provide a justification for a “legitimate” counter-terrorism operation in the eyes of the international community directed against the Palestinian occupied territories.

Contrived behind closed doors in July 2001, the Dagan Plan (named after Mossad chief Meir Dagan) was slated by its IDF and Mossad architects to be “launched immediately following the next high-casualty suicide bombing, would last about a month and is expected to result in the death of hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians.” (See Ellis Shuman,“Operation Justified Vengeance”: a Secret Plan to Destroy the Palestinian Authority, Intelligence Ploy behind the “Suicide bombings”, Global Research, February 01, 200)

‘Operation Protective Edge (OPE) directed against Gaza was planned well in advance of the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers. Prime Minister Netanyahu has called up 40,000 reservists. In the wake of the shelling and bombing raids, a major ground operation scenario is envisaged.

Moreover, similar to the logic of the Dagan Plan, the head of Israeli intelligence (Mossad) had “predicted” the kidnapping of the three teenagers. Under the title Mossad chief’s chillingly prescient kidnap prophecy, Haaretz confirms that

“Mossad chief Tamir Pardo had “outlined a scenario that was spookily [sic]similar to the kidnapping of three teens missing in the West Bank” (Haaretz, July 13, 2014, emphasis added)

Israeli civilian deaths are blamed on Hamas without evidence to justify military action against GazaMaan News, July 13, 2014)

. The ultimate objective of “Operation Protective Edge” is to break the institutional base of the Hamas leadership and destroy Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, with a view to eventually carrying out the annexation of the Gaza Strip to Israel.  As of July 13, Israel is reported to have struck 1,320 sites within Gaza, resulting in 167 deaths and more than 1,000 injured (

Were the three boys killed by Hamas?

Israeli press reports intimate that the three teenagers could have been executed by the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist entity the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which just so happens to be supported “covertly” as well “overtly” by the State of Israel.

Under the title Jihadist group takes credit for teens’ killings, the Times of Israel confirms that:

A new Palestinian jihadist group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIL) has claimed responsibility for the killing of three Israeli teenagers last month in the West Bank, … as well as other recent deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians…..

The actions were carried out in honor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the Islamic State, the reincarnation of the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL)declared last month, the statement said.”(Times of Israel, July 3, 2014)

The ISIL (renamed the Islamic State) (see image) constitutes the main Al Qaeda rebel fighting force in Syria directed against the government of Bashar Al  Assad. More recently, ISIL brigades have entered Iraq, confronting government forces.

While ISIL is an Al Qaeda affiliated entity funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, retribution by Israel for the deaths of the teenagers was directed against Gaza rather than Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

The supportive role of the US and Israel to the Al Qaeda affiliated entity is not limited to the realm of covert operations. The Israeli military (IDF) is supporting the jihadist entity out of the occupied Golan Heights. Moreover, amply documented, there are Western and well Israeli Special Forces within ISIL rebel ranks.

In March, an Austrian military officer of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)in the occupied Golan Heights “confirmed that Israel has provided large-scale logistical and military support to the [ISIL and Al Nusrah] terrorists and rebels in different parts of Syria”

The UNDOF official confirmed the existence of “a joint operation room” between Israel and the Al Qaeda rebels pertaining to “the delivery of [Israeli] assistance to the terrorists.”

This assistance is not limited to logistics:

“According to the Israeli Channel 1 television, ‘security sources’ informed of a new missile system named ‘Mitar’, established in Golan for giving backup coverage to anti-Syria militant groups.

The system includes middle-range and long-range missiles, according to the report.” (Al Alam May 3, 2014 emphasis added)

An IDF military hospital in the occupied Golan Heights was established to treat wounded Al Qaeda rebels.

In February, The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visited the IDF field hospital in the occupied Golan heights, which was set up in support of the jihadist rebels operating in Syria. The hospital was set up to treat wounded Al Qaeda rebels.

The Jerusalem Post acknowledges that the hospital is being used to support the jihadist insurgency. Netanyahu referred to the Hospital as the place which  “separates the good in the world from the evil in the world.”

“The good”, according to Netanyahu “is Israel”, which in a bitter irony wholeheartedly supports the Al Qaeda “freedom fighters” in Syria;  “the bad” refers to Iran which supports Bashar Al Assad.

The good, the prime minister said, is Israel, which “saves lives from the daily slaughter taking place in Syria. This is the true face of Israel.”

The evil, he continued, is Iran, which is arming those carrying out the slaughter. (Jerusalem Post, February 19, 2014)

While the IDF field hospital was established to support Al Qaeda in an operation coordinated by IDF Special Forces, Netanyahu casually accuses Iran for  “its support of terrorist groups around the world”. (JP, February 19, 2014)

Netanyau does not deny his government’s support of the jihadists. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledged that  “global jihad elements inside Syria” are supported by Israel:

Netanyahu toured the Golan Heights with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

At a lookout point overlooking the Syrian border, OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan briefed Netanyahu on the presence of global jihad elements inside Syria, as well as on the work being done to fortify the Israeli-Syrian border fence. (Ibid)

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Shakes Hand with an Al Qaeda Terrorist 

Is the wounded terrorist an Israeli intelligence asset? In the image below:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″ (ibid, emphasis added)

Who killed the three Israeli teenagers?

Ironically, the same jihadist group which is reported to have kidnapped and killed the three teenagers is supported by Israel’s IDF out of  the occupied Golan Heights.

A mere coincidence.

The ISIL-Mossad Connection

Update, July 16, 2014

It has now been confirmed that the leader of ISIL  and cleric Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who allegedly ordered the kidnapping and murder of the 3 Israeli teenagers “took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech.” (Gulf News, July 15, 2014)

The former employee at US National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that the British and American intelligence and the Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organisation that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”.

NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet’s nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans.

According to documents released by Snowden, “The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state “is to create an enemy near its borders”.

Counter view: How Israel defends Gaza bombings?

Netanyahu said Israel is facing the equivalent of “all the cities of the United States from the East Coast to Colorado” coming under an unyielding barrage of rocket attacks.
“Sometimes you just have to fight against people who want to murder you,” he said on the sixth day of a military battering that has killed at least 160 Palestinians. More than 1,000 have been injured.
Netanyahu said Hamas terrorists brought the carnage upon the people of the Gaza Strip.
“The difference between us is that we’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles,” he said. “So naturally, they’re responsible for all the civilian deaths that occur accidentally. We’re sorry for any accidental civilian death, but it’s Hamas that bears complete responsibility.” Thousands fled their homes in a Gaza town on Sunday after Israel warned them to leave ahead of threatened attacks on the sixth day of an offensive that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 160 people. As Israel made its first, limited ground incursion into Gaza on Sunday morning, Netanyahu would not rule out a full ground assault. “We’ll use whatever means are necessary to defend our people, as would the United States or any other government,” he said. He brushed off international calls for a ceasefire, saying Israel’s goal was to hurt Hamas enough to achieve long-term security from its rockets, not just a temporary halt. “We need to have quiet restored to our people for a sustainable period of time, and not just for five minutes,” he said. Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian envoy in Washington, backed a ceasefire and blamed Israel for targeting civilian buildings. “So far, Israel has carried out 1,300 air strikes against the Gaza Strip, more than 1,000 tons of explosives on the most densely populated area in the face of Earth,” he said. “Hospitals, mosques, schools were targeted. . . . Palestinian innocent civilians, children and women are paying the price for these massive Israeli air strikes.” But the West Bank-based Palestinian government has little control over Hamas in Gaza. “I don’t think Hamas is seeking confrontation with Israel,” Areikat said. Thousands of Palestinians were fleeing their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday and seeking refuge in UN shelters after warnings from the Israeli military that it planned to bomb the area. There have been no Israeli deaths during the recent conflict, largely because the Iron Dome, an antimissile defense system, has blocked more than 200 rockets launched by Hamas.

Israeli mother describes life under the fear of Hamas rocket attacks.

Ety Levy, a single mother of four who lives in Ashkelon, southern Israel, describes life in fear under rocket attacks I've lived in Ashkelon for six years now. I live with my four children in a state-subsidized building.

The bomb shelter in our building is locked because of a disagreement between some tenants. We asked the municipality to open it and contacted the city hotline about it, but no one did a thing. It was the same in Operation Pillar of Defense [in 2012]. When I visited my mother, who lives in south Ashkelon, we broke the lock on their building's shelter and found it in terrible condition. There was no way you could stay inside. There were mice everywhere and the sink was broken. We heard that some neighbors in the area had the same problem. They went to the mayor and he made sure their shelter was cleaned and fixed. No one did that for my mother's building, and the shelter can't be used. Public shelters in the city have air-conditioning, decent furniture and activities for children. That's great for whoever can make it there, but we live too far away and have to stay home. Now, during the operation, I stay at home with my four kids, day and night. When the siren goes off, we leave our apartment and gather in the staircase. We hear and see rockets being diverted [by Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system] or hitting targets very close to us. Every explosion makes the whole building shake. The children are afraid to sleep in their rooms and insist on staying in the living room with me all night. Even if they do manage to fall asleep, they take turns staying awake "on guard". My eldest daughter , who is eleven, hasn't slept for two nights running. I can't leave them alone like that, so I only pop out on short errands, usually to the nearest grocery store. My daughter was supposed to go to summer camp but it was cancelled because of the security situation.

I hope this will be over soon and we can go back to our daily lives. I mean really go back to normal, not just a ceasefire, because even with a ceasefire, there are still Qassam rockets. I hope we'll still get to have fun with the children before their school holiday ends. I want us to have a bit of quiet time together. Ety Levy, 30, is disabled and a single mother of four living in Ashkelon. She gave her testimony to Yuval Drier Shilo by phone on 15 July 2014.