Imagine a London where a sword of Damocles hangs over every street and every building. A London where the day is punctuated by missiles raining down indiscriminately on schools, homes, parks and gardens. A London where the difference between crossing the road or not could be the difference between having your face ripped to shreds by shrapnel from incoming rockets falling from the sky.

For the last seven years, and especially in the wake of the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, that has been the fate of Sderot, the beleaguered town on the edge of the Gazan-Israeli border. As the cauldron that is Gaza bubbles over with rage, Sderot finds itself in the firing line time and again, resulting in a city under siege and its people feeling utterly abandoned by their government and army.

When I last visited Sderot, I was struck by the near-deserted streets, the empty malls and cafes, and the air of impending doom that hung over the city like a cloud. Today was no different, except that this time the sense of despondency and dejection in the residents I met was far more acute than a couple of months ago.

The first person I spoke to, a Mizrachi man bedecked in jewellery scowling behind the counter of an empty shop, grimaced even further when I asked about the effect of this week's events. "Look over there", he muttered sullenly, pointing at a mother hurrying her two children along the high street. "See their suitcases? That's what it's come to now - they're all getting the hell out, and who can blame them?"

In the wake of the escalation of IDF operations in Gaza, and the increased salvo of Kassams fired at Sderot in response, the perennial white knight Arkadi Gaydamak has stepped in to pay for the evacuation of the local children. As he has done many times before - whether for altruistic reasons or for more self-serving ends - the Russian billionaire has filled the void left by the government's inaction, and funded respite care for the embattled city's residents.

However, according to Ruth, the manageress of a local cafe, his actions only highlight the utter disregard with which the government treats the citizens of Sderot. "What's going on is a war, isn't it?", she asked plaintively. "Therefore they should evacuate us all until it's over". Only the day before, her sister made headline news after being hit in the head with shrapnel from a rocket, leaving her hospitalised in Beer Sheva and her family praying she'll overcome her injuries.

"And just now [when a Kassam landed without the warning siren being sounded], my daughter called me to say it had fallen right in front of her", she continued. Her other daughter was bussed out to a hostel in Jerusalem in the middle of the night, leaving Ruth seething at the chain of events that have wreaked so much upheaval and pain on her family.

"If this was happening in Tel Aviv, it would be dealt with in an instant", she declared forcefully, accusing the government of ignoring Sderot's residents simply because they were working class and poor. "Even a third world country wouldn't stand by and take this kind of attack on its people", she said. "We need to go back into Gaza and deal with the terrorists by force. There's no other way - there's no one on either side strong enough to bring peace through talking, so we have to let the army deal with the problem."