In June 2006, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres walked one day into the cafeteria reserved for members of the Knesset and took a seat at his regular table, next to the window. When his aide went to put together a food tray for him, he remained on his own. I rushed over with the other political correspondents to pounce on our prey.

Those were the days when Qassam rocket attacks had started disrupting the lives of residents in the southern town of Sderot. They were demanding answers from the government. We sat around Peres, who was without his media advisor and in a talkative mood. Generally, Peres was known as a politician who liked being surrounded by a crowd when he appeared in the Knesset cafeteria, liked the banter with journalists and the informal atmosphere.

On that day, every question thrown at him was immediately answered with the stuff of which headlines are made. “Sir, are you planning to do anything about the Qassam rockets,” we asked, and were told: “We now have to tell the Palestinians, 'Qassams-shmasams' (a rhyme denoting “nonsense”). So what? We won’t move away from here,” Peres said irately and added: “We have to stop with the hysterics. Kiryat Shmona [a town near the Lebanon border] was also under bombardment for years and we held on.”

We looked at each other in disbelief. It was clear we were onto a big story. After all, it’s not every day that someone like Peres publicly denounces the “hysterics” of Sderot residents, especially not when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is visiting the bombarded town, trying to soothe its inhabitants.