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The first time I visited Sderot was the day after Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, as part of the Hadassah delegation to the World Zionist Congress, summer 2006. The second time I visited Sderot was with my husband Barry, at end of January 2008, on a trip sponsored by the Kiwanis of Belgium.

Now Barry and I were privileged to be part of a special media tour one year after the end of Operation Cast Lead, sponsored by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. As soon as we boarded the bus at 8 a.m., the first person we met was Shmuel Bowman, Israel director of Operation Lifeshield. This Toronto man, who has been in the Jewish nonprofit field for 15 years, had been brought into this organization soon after it was started.

Operation Lifeshield

Operation Lifeshield is a grassroots response, begun in 2006, by a group of people of diverse backgrounds -- a rock music producer, a building constructor, a rabbi, a businessman -- who wanted to help after the Second Lebanon War. Conferring with the Israel Manufacturer's Association, the founders -- American Israelis and business partners Shep Alster and Josh Adler -- found out there was a lack of public air raid shelters in public spaces in areas under attack. They began a campaign reaching out to ministries, synagogues, and interfaith groups for funds. Alster had worked in the building industry, and Adler was a contractor and construction supervisor.

The first shelters, designed in May 2007, were built according to Israel Defense Forces Homefront Command specifications. They are constructed with 12-inch thick steel-reinforced solid concrete walls and ceilings and steel sheeting lining the interior walls and ceilings for additional strength. The bus stop shelter, which holds about 15 people, weighs 30 tons and costs $19,000; the larger shelter, which holds up to 50 people, weighs 70 tons, and costs $35,000.

Moshav Mavqi'im

By 9:40, we have reached Moshav Mavqi'im, three kilometers (a little over 1 3/4 miles) south of Ashkelon, two kilometers (1 1/4 miles) from the border to Gaza. We stand in awe as the yellow concrete shelter is lowered off the truck and placed next to the Moadon Noar, youth clubhouse.

This small holder's community was founded by Holocaust survivors and was waning. A few years ago, a group 25 Israelis, evacuated from Gaza-area Jewish communities of Gush Katif, moved here and breathed new life into the small community. We are served refreshments in the community center, which the International Christian Embassy renovated and dedicated in October 2009.

Shalom Hemoh has been living here for five years since he left the Gush Katif area. He gave the group a big thank you. In Hebrew, which was translated for the press, he said, "those who save one soul are as if they saved the whole world. It is very important that the youth clubhouse is next to the shelter."

His 11-year-old son was killed in an accident, and the youth clubhouse is dedicated to his memory. All during Operation Cast Lead it was closed because it wasn't secure.

Malcolm Hedding, ICE director, responded that the ICE mandate says its purpose is to ensure Israel lives in peace and security and "this is an example of the fulfillment of our mandate. To provide this bomb shelter is a privilege. To stand with your community is a blessing."

To date, 60 shelters have been placed from Sderot in the south to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza. The intention is to place one at every bus stop in Sderot, and south to kibbutzim and moshavim along the Gaza border. They are also now working from the Erez Crossing to Gaza up to Ashkelon.

The International Christian Embassy is responsible for 15 of these shelters and today we had seen the first of two put in place from the trucks bringing them to the sites.

On to Ashkelon

By 10:20, we are met at City Hall by Yossi Greenfield, security chief for the municipality, who gives us a briefing. From the center of Gaza City to the center of Ashkelon is 10 kilometers (6 1/4 miles). Ashkelon was the oldest and largest seaport in ancient times and dates back many thousands of years. It was reestablished by Jews in 1948. This seaside resort-like community has 123,000 residents and 25,000 studying in five universities. There are three high schools.

We drive through the old part of the city, settled in the 1960s by immigrants from Morocco and Algeria, and stop at the Amit Technical Religious High School, which has 180 students. On Jan. 21 they will receive a bomb shelter. Why? Here in this lovely courtyard with classrooms all around and wall paintings of scenes from the Bible, was the place where the first rocket fell in 2006, on a Saturday, three days after the Operation Cast Lead ceasefire.

All of the walls of the school were pushed back and it was out of use for six months. After the first katyusha hit Ashkelon in 2006, every three to four days missiles were shot at the city.

Greenfield explained that "this changed the whole way of life. The alarm system was always open. Everyone was looking for a place to run if he heard an alarm. Now everyone here knows where to run."

Subsequently, 200 missiles hit Ashkelon in one month.

We were then welcomed by First Deputy Mayor Shalom Cohen, who thanked the International Christian Embassy for its help and explained that when an alarm sounds, people have 20 seconds to look for shelter.

"We didn't plan schools for this situation," he said.

We learn that only a few days before, a missile hit in the southern part of Ashkelon.

The school principals are having a meeting today requesting shelters and trying to find criteria for who gets the shelters. Most likely, the criteria will be where the most students can find shelter since those shooting from Gaza look to where they can meet the most casualties. In Ashkelon, 20 institutions do not have shelters.

Before we leave, Greenfield takes us to the beach area and marina and points out the hotels nearby. He tells us that before Hamas took over, there were business connections between Gaza and Ashkelon and people from Gaza are still coming to the Ashkelon hospital for medical treatment.

Moshav Talme Yafa

Seven kilometers (4 1/3 miles) from the Gaza border, we arrive at this small village at 12:20 p.m., where a truck is waiting with a small bomb shelter on its back. Sitting outside the kindergarten building by the sandbox are 18 small children and their teachers. In front of them are 18 painted tires with flower gardens inside each and a child's name.

When the yellow concrete shelter is unloaded next to their kindergarten, the two teachers lead them into the building and explain its use.

Sderot

By 2 p.m., we are in Sderot at the police station, in the backyard where glass cases hold examples of the katyushas shot into Israel and some metal shelves hold row upon row of more shells. This shelling of Sderot began in October 2000 and has not stopped.

Kory Bardash, a charming, knowledgeable young man from Parsippany, who has been with us all day, is our guide. Kory is married to an Israeli, has five children, and lives in Jerusalem. He is serving in the army reserves now and is a spokesman from the Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office.

He tells us there are no light poles in Gaza City because Hamas takes light poles or other similar poles, adds fins, packs in 20 pounds of explosives along with glass, nails, and bolts, settles its men in a mosque, a school, or a house where there are civilians, and shoots into Israel. The most likely times for Qassam rockets to land are between 7 and 8 in the morning and between 3 and 4 in the afternoon -- when parents are taking their children to school and going to work.

"Their range has improved," Kory told us, "as has their manufacturing intelligence." They could now hit Tel-Aviv.

Three years ago, Israel evacuated 10,000 Jews out of the Gush Katif Gaza area after 7,000 Qassams had fallen. A year ago, Israel initiated Operation Cast Lead to try to stop the Qassams falling in Sderot. That ended a year ago, and since then, 300 Qassams have come from Gaza to Sderot.

"It is incumbent upon our country to fortify so each citizen has a place to go for protection," Kory said.

The "Tseva adom," red color alert, indicates by voice and alarm that a Qassam is coming in and people have 15 seconds to find cover. Damage comes not only from the Qassam itself, but also from the spray of the glass, nails, bolts, and other objects.

From a citizen

Shalom Haber, a representative from City Hall, an assistant to the mayor in the spokesman's office, comes to greet us. He is a handsome man in his 60s or 70s with grey-white hair pulled back in a ponytail. He has lived in Sderot 40 years and was a high school principal; his parents came from Yemen.

He relates stories of parents taking one child at a time to school and then returning home in between in case there is an alarm.

The schools are not protected enough; until a year-and-a-half ago, 80 percent of the apartments had no shelters. There are about 1,000 shelters now in Sderot; they need 4,500 more.

He tells us "no destroyed apartments are visible." Why? The government sends people to check the damage and repair them as soon as it happens. In Gaza, they use the money they get for weapons and leave the ruined apartments in disrepair, and the citizens of Gaza suffer.

"We need to throw out the terror organizations. We pray the international community will cooperate with us to throw out the terror organizations," Haber said.

Sderot Media Center

We then meet Jacob Shrybman, a young man from Silver Spring, Md., who moved to Sderot about a year ago, to assist Noam Bedein in the three-year-old Sderot Media Center, a nonprofit regional news service for Sderot and the Western Negev, to document what is going on and assist the media.

He tells us the last Qassam to hit a home was May 19, 2009.

"There are thousands and thousands of stories here and we are the only information source countering the information coming out of Gaza," he said. We see a short video of Noam Bedein explaining their work.

Shrybman and Haber then walk us up the block a short distance from the police station, across a yard and down into a basement shelter, the "command center" of Sderot's government, where they run the town in times of emergencies. Then at the end of the day, they discuss what happened and how to prepare for the next day.

Haber shows us a screen with the photographs of the 10 people killed in Sderot between June 2004 and 2008.

To the Sderot Lookout to Gaza

We go by bus to a lovely residential neighborhood, learning that Sderot was founded in 1951 as a tent camp for immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Kurdistan, and North Africa. After being in tents five to six years, they were given 36-square-meter apartments (387 square feet), which they thought were palaces but housed families of sometimes 10 to 15 persons. The 1960s saw an influx into Sderot of Russian immigrants; in the 1980s, immigrants came from Ethiopia; in the 1990s, more immigrants came from the Caucasus, Bukhara, and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Today Sderot's population is about 24,000.

Standing less than 1,000 meters (a little over half a mile) from Gaza, we can see along the skyline Gaza City, whose entire length is 70 kilometers (43 1/2 miles); then we see the buffer zone between the security road and Gaza City, the Ashkelon power plant -- which provides Gaza with 65 percent of its electricity -- and Ashkelon.

Bardash tells us that until Operation Cast Lead, the people of Sderot endured seven years of assault from the terrorists in Gaza and the responses from Israel were minimal. With the building of a security fence around Gaza, terrorist attacks were deterred, so they now shoot over the fence or through the tunnels.

"Hamas currently has four times more than it had before the war, readying for the next war with weapons coming from Iraq," Bardash said. "In the next conflict, there will be over 300 rockets emanating from Gaza each day."

As we climb back down the hill and see the bomb shelters attached to all of the homes, Bardash says, "it's not just a bomb shelter that saves lives; it's being able to have peace of mind to live a normal life that shelters allow."