"Whatever they say in the Knesset or in the media, I promise you that we will not return to Sderot until Hamas is toppled. Let there be no more rounds, no leaks, no operations. We will not raise another generation of post-traumatic stress disorder in Sderot. Enough."
Lunch in Sderot, few wander the streets, even less at the local Shufersal branch. Alona Rabinovich, a Sderot council member and mother, came to buy for her home and children. "I feel good every time I leave the house," and on the way she makes it very clear - what was is not what will be.
"To bring the boulevards back to Sderot now? Smotrich is talking nonsense, and he will pay for it in two more years in the elections. The return of the people of Sderot to their homes will be relevant when we know how to restore the routine of our children's education. As long as there is no routine education, there is no return to routine. And for those who didn't understand, I'll say it as clearly as possible: After October 7, the issue of inclusion is over."
, Photo: David Peretz
Rabinovich's tone is no coincidence. 70-something days have passed since that Shabbat, but this week it seems as if the State of Israel, or at least some of its leaders, has begun to scratch its wallet hard. Suddenly, voices appeared openly hinting or contemplating that "the hotel is over," and the evacuees have to calculate their end backwards and begin to consider returning home.
Two weeks after that Shabbat, I visited Sderot. Dogs were on the street, but not much else. The Sukkot ornaments fluttered in the wind, a sign of time stopping. The city smelled of animal carcasses and uncleared garbage, and cars with bullet-pierced glass stood in the middle of the street. With the exception of the soldiers, or the glamorous overalls, only a few wandered around the city, moving like extras in an Israeli production of a series about the end of time.
Two months later, the State of Israel has emerged from the initial shock. In the center of the country, signs of routine returned: traffic jams and entertainment. True, the faces of those rushing to the train or bus are absorbed in the endless updates from Gaza and the north, and pictures of the abductees hang everywhere, but the course of life has returned to a "kind of" daily routine and night routine that is violated by such Hamas "snooze" sirens. Alarms that remind you - my dear, don't forget, these are still war days. But not always resilience. This week the alarm caught me in the heart of Tel Aviv. We got out of the car looking for a safe space only to gaze in amazement at the bar noodle occupants, who did not want to get up and leave their dish to cool down, openly mocking the fugitives to the safe space from the volleys. Routine.
Hamas terrorists in Sderot
But in Sderot another world as is customary. Never in Israel has an entire city been evacuated from most of its residents for such a long time. "At the moment, Sderot residents are being evacuated to 110 hotels across the country, from Tiberias to Eilat. 30,70 residents were evacuated by us," Yaron Sasson, the municipality's spokesman, told me. "In order to deal with this delusional situation, we divided the city into districts, and in each district we established a mini-municipality with social services and more than <> educational frameworks. Now there are Eilat Boulevard, Dead Sea Boulevard, Jerusalem Boulevard, and for small Sderot concentrations in all kinds of places like Yeruham or Kfar Maccabiah we established the Diaspora District," he laughs.
The hosts direct me to the parking lot of one of the deputy mayors. "Don't worry," they reassure, "they live on the road, they won't come today." A small soldier in a large coat smokes in the morning sun near the municipal war room. At the back entrance to the municipality building is a display case containing a collection of various Qassam missiles. On each of them is a note classifying Zionist history at the edge of the country by diameter and period. "There was a much larger collection at the police station, but it was destroyed," says the smoker with a sealed face. On the side of the Qassam cabinet, the invisible hand stuck a sticker: "I love Sderot." How do you say Yiddish? In emoji it sounds better.
Perforated city map
Inside the municipal building, a new kind of urban beehive sizzles. City officials and uniformed soldiers move together through the corridors of eternal neon. Dining tables feed the emergency personnel, while they together take care of the lives of the residents of the city here and those who have been scattered everywhere. Everything is organized in a purposeful mess, indicative of the strange times. Mattresses lean against office walls, weapons and vests stacked behind computer screens, canned food scattered everywhere, and family photos flashing beneath classified maps on the walls.
In one of the rooms I am happy to meet my friend Yaniv Grady. In normal times, Grady is known to thousands of musicians as the director of the ACUM organization in Tel Aviv Port and as the owner of a record printing company. But in the routine days of every second day, Lieutenant Colonel Grady functions as the Commander of the Hickler. We will return to these surprising acronyms.
The central map in the room documents the damage to the city. "Oh, it's not that bad," I look and say, "They only hit a few buildings." Sasson and Grady are amused. "This is the map of before," they say, pointing me to the current map of vulnerability. At that moment, I had a black hole in my eyes. There is no neighborhood or street that has not been covered with black circles. Like a spreading rash. On some streets even more than one. Go tell fate that he's not supposed to strike twice in the same place, certainly not after one of the quickest residents has just finished renovating his house from the previous hit.
, Photo: David Peretz
"Many of the missiles fall in open areas or on roads, but this is the first time we've counted more than 250 buildings, most of them homes and public buildings, all of which had direct hits. We don't know such numbers! Residents are used to 95% of rockets being intercepted during an operation, and because of that, there was and still is a great danger of staying in the city," Sasson says.
"The city is pretty punctured," Grady agrees, "in some of the older neighborhoods it's a yes house, a no house."
And how many residents are in the city now?
"At first, there were about 2,500 people left," Sasson replies. "Many of them are elderly, elderly, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union. As far as they're concerned, it's their home, they have a safe room at home, that's what they know. What will they do now in a hotel? Over time, we brought back everyone who was essential to the functioning of the city, some of the factory workers in the industrial zone returned to work, so sometimes they sleep here for a few nights and on weekends go to the Dead Sea. As of now, we can say that about 5,000 residents are here."
How do you know who's in and who's not?
"The collection department can read the water meters remotely. When we see that water is being used beyond an irrigation computer in the garden, it helps us know that there are people there, but first we had to make sure that everyone there was a resident..."
What do you mean, so who will they be?
"Who told you there wasn't a squad hiding there just waiting for the right time?" volunteers Grady. "We sent patrols and checked house-to-house, also so that the residents who remained would feel safe and know that we see them and know that they are here."
Sasson: "That very Saturday, Davidi (Mayor D.P.) said to the municipal employees: 'Guys, this is not a round. We have to prepare, this time it will take months.' In the past, we were used to evacuating a respite of 6,000 people per round, mainly special populations who find it not easy in such situations, but this time we had to evacuate the entire city."
Sderot will also grow again, photo: David Peretz
"Although the city is used to taking breaks," Grady explains, "what is required of those in charge this time is to translate it into much larger, much, much larger masses, and they did it very well together with the leaders of the local communities. From what I've seen, Sderot's way of working is a bit like a kibbutz. Lots of good, strong communities coming together into a municipal unit. It gives inner strength."
"There are some Sderot residents who won't be happy to know that you called them a kibbutz, even as a compliment," Sasson smiles.
Isn't this matter of "in the kibbutz, in the village, in Keret" over after October 7?
"It really shouldn't be," Sasson replies. "But not long ago I saw graffiti here, 'Din Sderot Kadin Nir Am,' and it wasn't written by chance. They got six months to stay in Tel Aviv without arguments or anything. The kibbutzim were given NIS 1,000 per person purchase vouchers, but each family in Sderot received NIS 500 coupons. Why should it be like this? There are 36,<> residents here, and I understand that this is a difficult number to deal with, but you have to remember that it also brings out the Israeli in Israel. They do, and I don't?"
In a cookie it sounds better
In the western neighborhood of Sderot there is a long avenue of new houses. It takes me a while to understand why this is strange to me. It's so rare to see four-story towers. Some of the houses appear to be in a state just before the keys are handed over. A statue of a pianist with wings playing a grand piano in the circle of motion. From somewhere emerges a lady walking a large dog in the middle of the road for many meters. When she reaches the square, I go over to ask why she stayed in the city. "Sorry, I don't speak Hebrew," she says, continuing her lunch walk on the road.
, Photo: David Peretz
When I almost reach the end of the avenue where there is no one, I see signs indicating that the first houses were already occupied before that day. On the second floor, the glass balconies are sprayed with a cluster of bullets fired in motion. The bullet marks spread along the blue panes like graffiti from hell. Nothing is more conscious of its perfection than a broken glass holding itself tighter than to shatter completely. On the third floor is an empty laundry drying stand, behind it is a cymbal box that has not yet been opened, while on the top floor hangs a sign - Apartment for rent. I feel like a children's story for adults is being written here.
"During the ceasefire, many residents returned for the first time since October 7. They folded sukkots, cleaned refrigerators, some of them were in terrible condition, because of mold they had to replace refrigerators sometimes. The seasons have changed, they came to get winter clothes, and in the last two or three weeks we have seen more of the return of the city's people," says Lt. Col. Tal Cohen, deputy commander of the JKLR in Sderot.
I'll admit, I didn't know those acronyms.
"HIKLR is a liaison unit to the municipal authority. Its role is to translate the IDF and the Home Front Command's policy to its own authority and to civilians, and on the other hand to mediate the PA to the army. If the PA needs assistance in something, we are the body that speaks the civilian part, as well as the military part. In every emergency situation that exists, there is a representative of the liaison unit."
In other words, are you the official mediator between the civilian and military worlds?
"Yes, even in situations that are not wars, not on us – an earthquake, for example. So whatever the army integrates into civilian life, the JKLR are there to make sure that happens. This position was born in the Home Front Command because of the uniqueness of the situation of the city of Sderot and other authorities. This way we know how to connect with every population in the city and mediate to them what is happening. If we discover that there is a cluster of housing whose residents are mostly Amharic speakers, we will provide appropriate materials for this language."
Do you have evacuation orders in Amharic?
"Since Cast Lead, they have translated the instructions into every language spoken in Israel. Amharic, Tigerite, Russian, Thai, Portuguese, Eritrean, and even the Bnei Menashe language - Kuki."
, Photo: David Peretz
I travel with Cohen to look for the bird man of Sderot. Vladi stays in Sderot and takes care of parrots and other pets that hotels don't bring in for his evacuated neighbors. We wind our way through the old streets of Sderot, some of the houses covered with white plastic sheeting. "These are houses that were damaged, and after there were property tax officers here, they spread plastic sheeting on them, so that the rain wouldn't come in," says Cohen. Some of the houses are already undergoing renovation work. When we arrive at Vladi's house, the skilled Cohen notices that he is gone. "I don't see any cats here. When Vladi is at home, the whole area is full of stray cats." In the absence of garbage from houses and shops, the cats at the bottom learned the way to the house of Vladi, who feeds them, and since then they have accompanied the bird man throughout the city.
The new equation
"October 7 is a different event," Sasson tells me when we return to City Hall. "When vans cross the road to Sderot, when more than 30 of our residents have been murdered, this trauma is so severe. Add to that the full evacuation of all the city's residents from their homes for the first time, and the promise of the country's leaders, including Smotrich, who said they would not return the residents as long as there was a threat from Gaza."
But as of now, there are no terrorists on the ground, and if anyone knows how to deal with Qassams without salt, it's the residents of Sderot. Where does the resistance to return come from?
"Hamas can pull rabbits out of the tunnel at any moment," Grady replies. "Hamas is not finished with its career. So many things were taken for granted in the past, that there is a fence and you don't cross it. And here, on the other side, there was someone who said, 'Hey, here's a fence and you can cross with it, and passed.'"
"What's the bar?" continues Sasson. "An alarm once a week is ok to get? What is this disrespect? The residents don't want and can't hear the color red anymore, they got it this far. Why did we go to war? Why have all our residents been crammed into hotels for 70 days, five people in one hotel room? So to go through all this so that they return to the color red, and again the pressure on the children? Not. As long as there is no definition of a ceasefire and removal of the directives, you do not send your children to school. In Tel Aviv there is a minute and a half of alarm, you can evacuate all children to a protected space. Here the alarm is up to 15 seconds, most often it is 8. Think how far you can run and hide in eight seconds, now multiply that by 30 children per class."
, Photo: David Peretz
"Seemingly in the end we get used to everything," Grady says. "Right now we're like that frog in the hot water, constantly raising the temperature by one degree and it's pleasant for us, but what happened to the residents of Sderot is that they took out all the water and put napalm on it in the morning, and that's a completely different story that requires completely different answers. I thought that when rockets reached Ashkelon and Ashdod, the country would explode."
"The story of this war in which Hamas wrapped the rockets in terrorist infiltrations, and this is a tremendous tragedy, because from now on we have to take into account that the residents of the western Negev have a new equation: if there are rockets and red paint, it means that there is also infiltration and terrorists in the house."
Just as I ask if there is any way that in this new equation anyone will ever return to the city, Davidi enters. We met in the past when he was on his way to the Knesset and the government, but in the end he returned to repairing the sidewalks and the daily contact with the human mosaic that makes up the city. He has spent the past two and a half months among the hotels where the residents of his divided city are scattered.
"The residents of Sderot, including my family and I, miss our city very much," he says, "but we will only be able to return when we know that it is safe to live in Sderot and that our children will not have to fear, neither terrorists nor rockets. For years we warned about the strengthening of Hamas and their desire to harm us, and they did not listen to us - now no one can remain indifferent to what we all experienced on Simchat Torah. Sderot residents are not ready to return to the reality of October 6. The reality in the region must change, and this is the task of the government, the cabinet and the army, alongside the no less important work of the Takuma Administration on rehabilitating the city the day after together with us."
When the supermarket is a sign of life
I return to Shufersal in Sderot. Here even a queue for a cashier is a kind of miracle. Rabinovich is surprised to find one of the former Soviet immigrants holding a tray of fresh steak. The two exchange a few words in Russian. "My grandchildren are in Eilat, my wife is in the Dead Sea, and I came back here," he translates himself in my honor.
So why did you come back?
"You know what it's like to live in a hotel for two months? Eat their food with you. Terrible, like a refugee camp! How much can you get up in the morning, see the sea and say, voila! So voila voila, it's a waste of time for everyone. Boring there to die for. A person cannot live in a hotel as if it were a home. After two months, the Qassams don't scare me anymore."
So are you ready to live in the situation as it was before?
"Not at all, but you know what's the worst—is that I don't think there's any chance of anything changing. There is no faith in the Jews..."
, Photo: David Peretz
"Write Sabag without A, Moroccan after all, not Tunisian," laughs Keren Sabag-Shadadi, the branch's manager. "At the end of every day I go to the Dead Sea for my husband and children," she explains the complexity of the situation of many Sderot, "but every day I'm here in Sderot, opening the branch for everyone who stays. We were actually here from the third day after. There was no electricity, we had to open the heavy shutter with our hands, but we insisted that we have a supermarket here, because super open means a sign of life."
It's surprising how full the shelves are. Who comes here?
"A lot of men who returned to work here in factories, a lot of adults whose age it's not easy to leave home, a lot of Soviet immigrants, or couples without children who didn't want to leave."
If there are no children, who are all the cartons of carbos at the entrance for?
"The soldiers are destroying it," she laughs.
And students are also coming?
"Absolutely not. Either they are recruited or they are with the parents. Not long ago, a student came here from the adjacent building. He told me that he had taken a break, so he came to Sderot to calm down, get some clothes and go back to the army. You understand? A respite in Sderot."
And you want to go home?
"Brr! Can't wait to come back! But we've been in this nightmare for 20 years. I raised children into this reality, but it's no longer legitimate. In our wildest dreams we never dreamed that what happened would happen, so I think the residents should insist as one group on our security from here on out. If I go back to Sderot, I don't have to live in anxiety. Do you think we'll be remembered if we get back to normal?"
At the exit to the parking lot, Cohen introduces me to one of the policemen who saved two girls whose parents were murdered. "As far as I'm concerned, they saved me," he tells me as I shake his hand. "My ear must be sensitive to babies' cries, and I ran quickly outside. If I hadn't run to save them, I would have been murdered along with my friends at the police station."
When did you begin to realize that this was a completely different event?
The policeman looks at me for a long moment. "Listen, dude, we're two months later, and I still don't understand. Functioning, acting, doing and everything, but understanding? Absolutely not."
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