Home > Olives & Thorns > Archives > 2008 > May > 20 > Entry
Shopping in Ashkelon, looking out for rockets.
The lingerie store reported a 20-30 percent drop in sales.
The orthopedic shoe store was doing half volume since it reopened on Monday, five days after the rocket struck. It was supposed to reopen on Sunday, but the store clerk, Ina Kosenkov, 24, was too frightened to come to work. She said she’s looking for a new job outside Ashkelon.
During the height of the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign six years ago, there was a calculus to survival: Don’t ride the bus. Avoid outdoor cafes. If you must enter a cafe, sit near the wall, away from the door.
The rockets are different. They strike at random.
Since 2001, thousands of rockets, mostly crude, homemade varieties, have landed in southern Israel. They have killed 13 people.
This year, longer-range rockets made in Iran and smuggled across the Egyptian border, according to Israel, have reached Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 located 10 miles from Gaza.
Last Wednesday, a gynecologist, her patient and her patient’s daughter were severely injured when a rocket struck a women’s health clinic in the mall. Their conditions have improved, according to Israeli media.
While some of the scant shoppers on Tuesday vowed to keep shopping despite the risks, Yossi Portal, 26, rejected the nationalist refrain — giving in to fear means the terrorists win — and said he would be foolish to stay.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “I think maybe toward Tel Aviv. They haven’t reached Tel Aviv yet.”
Portal is a producer and an on-air impersonator at a radio station, which has offices in the mall.
“I have a friend who left two days ago,” he said. “It’s scary here.”
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