At 12:40 I left Tel Aviv and drove, at high speed, in the direction of Beer Sheva. I entered the city, turned to the right. I reached a T-junction just before the square with the aircraft at its center. I was waiting for the red light to change when I heard on radio 2 network "A warning siren in Beer Sheva" [He had been informed by forum posters about the radio station to tune to for warnings in the area. -S]. I got out of the car. I looked around and saw no one getting out of their cars and heard no siren. As I got back into my car, the siren went off. There was a 6 second delay between the time I heard the announcement on the radio and the time I heard the actual alarm. I killed the engine and dashed off like crazy towards a row of houses nearby. I entered into a courtyard, saw a door and went in. Inside a man was standing. I said: "Sorry to barge in like that. May I?" He said: "Yes, of course, get into the fortified room (Mamad), hurry up, fast."

I went into the shelter with a family of complete strangers, a grandfather, a grandmother, a young man and his crying little daughter. A few seconds later we heard a very loud boom that shook the entire house. The child started crying frantically.

Three minutes later we left the room. Into the home a man burst in, holding his 16 year old daughter who was hysterical. They had been outside, lying on the ground, and heard the very loud explosion very close. The family managed to quiet down the girl. We gradually settled down in this man's house, a man I don't know at all.

Amid all that mayhem, I forgot to ask the family's name. I just thanked them. If one of them happens to read this forum, a huge thank you.

It is a miserable sort of existence they get to live, these people in the south of Israel. Hearing about it is hugely different from experiencing it first hand. It is a feeling of utter powerlessness waiting for a rocket that no one knows where or when it will get you. Some people just lay down in the middle of the intersection. If the rocket had fallen there, nothing could protect them.

When the father of the family where I had taken shelter heard I was from Tel Aviv, and that it was my first time in the city, he said: "You see now what is like? Tell them, tell your friends, your friends in Tel Aviv, tell them so they'll have an idea what it is like for us, down here."

I want to thank this family, into whose home I barged, where I lived a fraction of the nightmare they have to live with, day in day out. It only toughens my opinion; let them flatten Gaza. There is no way, simply no way these terrorists can be allowed to continue to possess these missiles.