'Sderot cinema:' Israelis watch latest from Gaza

A picture posted on Twitter by Danish journalist showing Israeli citizens sitting on a hilltop and cheering the Palestinian territory of Gaza being bombed has gone viral on social media.

The picture, which was uploaded on Wednesday by Allan Sørensen, the Middle East correspondent for Denmark-based newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad, was accompanied by the message “Sderot cinema: Israelis bringing chairs 2 hilltop in sderot 2 watch latest from Gaza. Clapping when blasts are heard.”

So far, the photo - which was taken near the Israeli border city of Sderot - has been retweeted over 7,000 times.

Many users of the popular micro blogging site Twitter expressed outrage at the depicted event.

“Morality of a people so skewed that murder is a public spectle. an astonishing thing to see in this day/age,” wrote one user.
“That is just inhumane, abominable and disgusting. Shame on you, Israel,” wrote another, while one user wrote that the people in the picture were “encouraging a culture of death.”

A follow-up article published in English on the Kristeligt Dagblad website on Friday describes the scene in detail.

“People have dragged camping chairs and sofas to the top of the hill. Several sit with crackling bags of popcorn, while others smoke hookahs and talk cheerfully,” according to the article.

A spectator quoted by the daily described coming up on the hilltop as a “a quest for excitement,” while another said: “We are here to see Israel destroy Hamas.”

Since Tuesday, Israeli security forces have conducted strikes in Gaza to retaliate against Hamas fighters, who they claim have launched rounds of rocket fire into Israeli territory – much of which has been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.

Gaza officials say that almost 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes over the last four days.

Despite a U.S. offer to help negotiate a ceasefire with militants, Israel said it was determined to end cross-border rocket attacks that intensified last month after its forces arrested hundreds of activists from the Islamist Hamas movement in the occupied West Bank following the abduction there of three Jewish teenagers who were later found killed. A Palestinian youth was
killed in Jerusalem in a suspected Israeli revenge attack.

Israel's campaign “will continue until we are certain that quiet returns to Israeli citizens,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Israel had attacked more than 1,000 targets in Gaza and there were “more to go.”