On Monday, Dec. 29th, at about 11:35pm, a Grad rocket fell next to my house.

My story starts with the fact that I really didn’t expect or think that they’d want to or manage to reach my town. That same day I even laughed about it and said, “What if they aim a Qassam here? It will take one look at this city and go back to Gaza!” Without any warning siren, the missile exploded next to us.

I was awake, getting stuff ready for school, sitting at the computer. My parents had gone upstairs to sleep, and my brother was in the living room watching the news. Suddenly there was a huge explosion! I cannot describe the “boom” that I heard. I was frightened and cried out. My dad took me to the shelter that we have in our house, and I cried for at least half an hour. Friends and family were calling me, but I couldn’t answer the phone because in the shelter there’s no reception. The TV and the Internet were cut off. My mom brought her portable computer into the shelter so that we could log on to the Internet and see what was going on – but there was no way of connecting.

At that moment I felt that there was no hope, that no-one was protecting me, that my home was no longer my shelter.

We opened the window a little and saw lots of smoke. My mom went outside and returned after 5 minutes; she said that the missile had landed right here, in our neighbors’ house. I started to cry, and my brother and everyone else were really worried. My mom couldn’t hear in one ear, because of the noise of the explosion. The room that was her workroom was destroyed. Everything had fallen off the shelves and broken, and some of the windows in the house were also shattered.

Everything I’ve told you up to now, happened within only 10 minutes. After that, my mom said, “Come, let’s go out.” It was raining hard outside. I went out and saw the Home Front. They said that there had been more rockets, and so we had to stay in a protected space. My dad took us to an aunt who has a basement that’s all one big reinforced room. We got there still crying and frightened. There we managed to answer all of our calls and my uncles from Ashkelon spoke with me and told me to calm down, and that everything would be okay.

The next day I returned home with my mom, to fetch clothes and stuff so we could continue staying with my aunt. I saw the house that the missile had struck, and I was shocked. Only then did I realize how close it had come to us… that moment I realized that God had helped me and my family; that it was a miracle that the window under which my parents had been sleeping, had not shattered. I was really afraid to enter the house. I went in, did everything I had to do quickly, and came out. I felt bad; I felt that I wanted to go back to my aunt.

Today it’s already about two weeks since this happened, and I’m still at my aunt. I’m not so afraid to go home any more, but my dreams remind me of what happened. Until now I haven’t told anyone; I was afraid that they’d laugh at me, but the truth is that now I’m really not afraid. Sometimes I get a little nervous when there’s a siren, but I say, Thank God there’s a siren.

I’m ready to be strong for our country! So we can have quiet!

Wishing everyone a quiet day : )