Dear Friends of the Sderot Media Center
As the people around the world celebrate the Passover Festival of Freedom, Sderot and the Western Negev residents live under the threat of continued rocket attacks on the region. In March, Gaza rocket attacks left one Thai worker dead on an Israeli kibbutz and over 70 people seeking treatment from local trauma facilities for shock.
In the meantime, the government of Israel has invested over half a billion shekels to construct 5,000 new bomb shelters in Sderot.
By operating in Sderot for the past 4 years, under rocket fire escalations and supposed ‘ceasefires’, SMC’s plans for the future rely upon a clear understanding on the following:
1. The “rocket reality” in Sderot and the Western Negev communities will continue unabated.
2. Gaza is the only Arab territory in the Middle East now ruled by Radical Islam and run from Iran by remote control.
3. The residents of Sderot and the Western Negev residents under fire, especially the younger generation, will need decades of psychological help and rehabilitation to lead normal lives.
SMC’s Future:
SMC has pioneered a 3-year business plan to operate a visitors center to provide timely briefings for the foreign and local press, elected officials, and students from around the world who visit the area, so that SMC can update the world in real time, while at the same time convey the untold human interest story of what it is like for an entire population to be under siege from Gaza.
In that context, SMC will also share the situation of the Sderot and Western Negev mental health and trauma centers to the media and advocate for their vital necessity in the community and against any attempt to reduce or even to close these centers, due to lack of budget.
I would like to take a moment to thank you for your dedication to Sderot Media Center and the people of Israel thus far. It is with generous financial and moral support of private individuals, that Sderot Media Center is able to continue bringing the voices of Sderot residents and Southern Israel to the attention of mainstream media and the global community.
Donations to Sderot Media Center can be made to Sderot Media Center, PO Box 472, Sderot, Israel 80100. Tax deductible accounts are avivlabe in the US, UK and in Canada.
Pesach Kasher v’Sameach,
Noam Bedein and Sderot Media Center staff
Below is a brief overview of Sderot Media Center’s notable advocacy activities and tours presenting Sderot’s reality since the start of 2010. Click on the links to read more.
January–March
: Sderot Media Center organized the Sderot Rally of Hope, a solidarity march for the people of Sderot in response to the Gaza Freedom March. Dozens of international news sources including the New Times, Christian Science Monitor and Washington Post covered the event. This event was coordinated with the Israeli minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs.
Noam was interviewed in the National Post during his Sderot campaign for campus students and communities on Sderot’s security issues.
: Read Noam’s article on his college campus tour in Canada published in the Jerusalem Post Magazine.
‘Israeli Apartheid Week: Distracting the world from the real human rights abuses and Radical Islam’: Read about Noam’s Sderot awareness campaign during Israeli Apartheid Week in South Africa.
Videos:
: Watch YouTube video of Pastor John Hagee’s visit in Sderot with Sderot Media Center.
Sderot Media Center’s exclusive interview with fellow worker and friend of the deceased at the site of rocket attack.
