LIVING NEXT TO GAZA

This is not a great surprise when a Kassam rocket may land on your house, your garden or your child at any time of the day.

S'derot has been on the receiving end thousands of these missiles in the past few years, hundreds in the last few months alone.

This community in Southern Israel has the misfortune to be right alongside the most controversial piece of land in the world. The Gaza Strip Gaza, just four miles wide and 16 miles long is home to over a million Palestinians under the control of the militant Islamic group Hamas, part elected government, part terrorist organisation.

I am standing on a hillside looking over the whole of Gaza from Jabilya at one end to Rafah on the Egyptian border at the other.

A huge white balloon in the shape of an airship floats high in the bright, cloudless sky, from which spy cameras monitor activity on the ground.

The birds are singing and the buildings of Gaza City shimmer in the distance.

But appearances can be deceptive. A rocket can land on your head just nine seconds after being fired from behind the security wall that keeps Gaza and its citizens separated from the rest of Israel.

It is the morning after the night before.

The previous evening, March 6, eight Jewish religious students were shot dead in a Jerusalem seminary and Israel is on a heightened state of alert.

My guide at the edge of Gaza is a man whose life has been split neatly into two halves.

Antony Levy spent his first 30 years in Bournemouth, the second three decades in Israel, raising his family there. He is 60 years old, as Israel will be in May.

His parents ran fur shops in Bournemouth and he was educated at Queens Park School and Portchester. His wife Liz is also Bournemouth born and raised.

Antony first went to Israel in 1967 as a teenager to volunteer during the Six Day War and worked on a kibbutz. He returned home, married and the family moved to Israel permanently in 1978, now living in Karkur in the north.

Even at that time they thought Israel a better bet than Britain and they haven't changed that view.

The couple have three grown up sons who also live in the country.

Antony keeps in touch with events at home through the Daily Echo website each day.

Today, he has driven south to meet his friend Yossi, a rabbi, lawyer and counsellor who offers support to the communities next to Gaza. Antony also helps, on a voluntary basis.

He too knows what it's like to be in the shadow of the rocket.

The family spent several nights in shelters during the second Lebanon conflict in the summer of 2006 when Hizbollah sent missiles over. They also lived in Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War when Iraq was despatching the Scuds.

One of the notable features of life in Israel is that people will travel from their own communities to those under fire to offer support.

And because the conflict has moved from front to front for decades, there is always somewhere in need solidarity.

"This is part of everyday life in Israel and always has been. There's a real pressure and not just when there is conflict in a particular area. If you see a bag left unattended you ask around. If someone runs down the street or a car backfires, your heart jumps for a second. At one time you'd never sit next to the window in a coffee shop. That's just the way it is."

Like many Israelis, Antony does not know if there can ever be peace or how it can be achieved. He also fears war in the north will flare again and what might happen in the West Bank.

"We pulled out of Gaza in 2005 as a stepping stone to peace but look what happened. We cannot imagine a similar scenario in the West Bank, It could be a nightmare.

"I do believe Israel will survive, but it cannot be taken for granted, especially as long as there are those like Hamas and Hizbollah who want to see it destroyed."

He says Israelis, like the vast majority of Palestinians, want to live in peace and prosperity, side by side with each other.

"The Palestinians are good people, I know that. They want the same as we do. But they are pawns being manipulated by Hamas, who fire rockets at us from play areas, schools and houses."

Yossi, 37, works out of coffee bars, schools, youth centres and homes, counselling those traumatised by the pressures of living in a permanent state of worry and little sleep.

More than half of young people in S'derot have issues relating to the conflict including fear, anxiety, aggression and other behavioural problems. Around 25 per cent of children have dropped out of school.

Father of five Yoav Igvi is near the end of his tether at home in S'derot. "I want to get out of here as soon as I can but my house is worth only half of what I bought it for. No-one wants to come and live here anymore."

Yoav opened a shop in the town but it failed and now works as a van driver - always with one ear on the radio and one hand on his cellphone when he is out of the area. If he cannot reach his wife on the mobile after reports of a rocket attack he panics and drives straight home.

"It is impossible to live anything like a normal life but we all want one," says Yoav. "At the weekends we go away to stay with friends so we can at least get some sleep."

Antony believes Israel gets a bad press, partly because "our public relations is very poor."

He adds: "We do have a case but we are not very good at making it. But we must do better because I fear there are even more difficult times ahead. Almost certainly things are going to get worse before they get better."

Not everyone thinks they ever will.