Sderot residents awakened to the scream of Color Red alert sirens Friday morning, announcing that school would have to be closed for a third day. Nine rockets were fired at Sderot and other western Negev communities Friday morning, five exploding in Sderot and the other three in other communities by mid-morning. One of the rockets exploded in a Sderot gas station in town, lightly wounding one person. Another scored a direct hit on a private home. Four people suffered shock in the attack. Three other residents were hit by a spray of shrapnel by a different Kasssam rocket and rushed to Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital. Three rockets landed in open areas around the town, two on the Sapir College campus and one near the Sderot cemetery. No one was injured and no damage was caused by these attacks. The rocket attacks forced Sderot officials to cancel school for a third day in light of the security conditions, despite Mayor Eli Moyal’s insistence Thursday that classes would resume. Two of the missiles landed in areas south of Ashkelon and another one exploded in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council area, touching off a brush fire. One rocket exploded in an area next to Kfar Maimon -- the first time in a year that a rocket has landed so close to Netivot. Two Pensioners’ party ministers, Health Minister Yaakov Ben Izri and Rafi Eitan, Minister of Pensioner Affairs arrived a short time ago arrived in Sderot a short time ago to show their support and solidarity with the traumatized community. Eitan said Thursday that he would work with the Eshel organization to send approximately 2,000 pensioners from Sderot to a weekend vacation on Friday. Pensioners will stay for free at hotels in Jerusalem and near the Dead Sea. The vacations will cost approximately two million shekels. The Tourism Association and local hotels in Eilat have offered to give 250 residents of Sderot three free days in Eilat hotels, with meals included. The Telran manpower company is offering 40 job positions to Sderot vacationers. After Sderot, Ben-Yizri will be visiting the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, where most regional rocket attack victims have been treated.
