Camp gives girls a break from city under siege

Chandler is proving to be a genuine summer getaway for 11 Israeli girls whose hometown of Sderot is incessantly bombarded by exploding rockets fired from just across the border in Gaza.

The girls, ages 10 to 16, are among 110 children of Sderot who have been flown to the U.S. and Canada to spend July at traditional Jewish summer camps where they can get a break from the Hamas shellfire that has besieged their city since 2001. Sderot is less than a mile from Gaza, and the Israeli military has not been able to stop the attacks - 4,000 rockets hit the city of 22,000 since 2005 alone, killing 11.

Shiraz Ben Shimol, 12, showed the scar on her left elbow where shrapnel from a Qassam rocket struck her 5 1/2 years ago while she was getting off a bus.

Lee Ben Abu, 16, told of a rocket landing in the courtyard of her home six months ago. It exploded and jolted the large house. The family's library on that side of the house took the brunt of the blast. "We have not slept upstairs for four years," she said. Instead, the family of six sleeps on mattresses on the first floor so they can more quickly move to shelter when the bombing alert is sounded.

"I don't want to move away. I love the city, this is my city," the girl said Monday on the first full day of Camp Gan Israel, organized by Chabad of the East Valley, an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Chandler.

Through July 28, the girls will join about 50 Valley children in the Jewish day camp. On Monday at Kyrene del Sueno Elementary School, they were involved in such activities as cake decorating, crocheting, basketball and "wacky water" games. In days ahead, they will visit a horse farm and a water park, bowl, hold a talent show and a mock wedding, go to a museum and more.

"The city of Sderot is constantly under attack, and it affects the children in a way we can't imagine," said Rabbi Mendy Lipskier, camp director and a rabbi with Chabad. As many as 90 percent of the Sderot children have post-traumatic stress syndrome, according to Chabad Lubavitch, which is helping the effort to offer the 11 camps this summer.

Lipskier said he was asked to host one of the camps by a Boston rabbi who had brought a small group of children to the U.S. last summer for camps and decided to expand them. The Chandler rabbi was able to raise financial support for the flights, health coverage and other costs. He still needs about $7,000 to meet expenses.

The girls are not staying with separate host families, but are being kept together at a private home, Lipskier said. They are getting counseling and come together each night to talk over the day's experiences.

They arrived Wednesday and saw an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game Thursday. Because the girls recoil from explosions, plans were to deliberately avoid any fireworks shows on the Fourth of July. "The did get a little scared when they heard some fireworks," Lipskier said. "Fortunately, they did not hear too much of that."

At 16, Abu is older than most of the children in the summer camps, but when her sister, Yuval, 11, was accepted, their family appealed to Lipskier to add her. "She's gone through so much," Lipskier said. "She even had someone die in her hands" - a friend who was on the street and was killed by shrapnel while trying to protect a younger brother.