Hi kids, can you draw a Qassam?

In keeping with the new reality created by the Gaza disengagement that has brought dozens of Israeli communities into range of Palestinian Qassam rockets, the IDF is attempting to teach children near the Gaza border to be prepared for worst-case scenarios, including terrorist infiltrations, rocket and mortar attacks.

“Hi kids, today you will be drawing Qassam rockets,” counselors from the Home Front Command told children who live near the Gaza border, following the IDF’s withdrawal from the Strip.

Sense of security

Over 40 towns and villages have turned into frontline communities as a result of the pullout from Gaza The Home Front Command, which routinely provides counselors to fifth graders, began a special operation this week to give the students in all grades a sense of security.

“The sessions are aimed at giving children who live in these communities at all grades a sense of security," one senior officer told Ynet. "Our counselors go from school to school, from class to class, telling kids about their new reality – what the threats are, and the ways to defend one’s self.”

Can you draw a Qassam?

As part of the session, counselors distributed a special booklets for young children to learn about terrorists, mortar shells, and light weapons fire.

The children are asked to respond to questions about what they would do in various situations, and to draw Qassam rockets as they imagine them to look like.

“This way, the child sees that the Qassam is not a big thing. The child understands its proportions, and this gives him the feeling that he can deal with it, dispelling the feeling that one must live with eternal insecurity,” said the officer.

Dealing with threats

The source added that the children were already familiar with some threats before the disengagement, but that the Home Front Command chose to emphasize all the threats – new and old – in order to give the children a sense of security.

The special notebook describes the Qassam as, “being built of pipe, between half a meter and a meter long, around the height of a school student’s table. When a rocket falls, it makes a big noise, and that’s why it can frighten us.”

The children are also told that not every Qassam rocket launch can harm them – “the rocket could harm us, but if it fell in the sports field near our class, and we are in the school, we won’t be harmed.”

Similar explanations exist about potential terrorist infiltrations – what to do if “a suspicious person has come in to hurt us” - and on light weapons fire - “shooting at people who are next to the border fence.”

Family roles

The children also receive instruction on how to defend themselves in each of those situations, and even receive a graph where they write about their division of roles in their families during each scenario.

In the booklet, children are asked to write what they would do during a lesson and heard an explosion. Another question asks children to write what they should do if they hear shots fire while at school.

They are also asked to deal emotionally with the scenarios, with fill in sentences such as: “When I think about the new situation, I feel…” and “When I am scared, I turn to…”

The Home Front Command told Ynet that parents would also receive instruction in the following weeks.