REPORTING. War between Israel and Hamas: In Sderot, near the Gaza Strip, residents begin to return to their homeland

Its 30,000 residents left this city in southern Israel, close to the Gaza Strip, after the Hamas attack on October 7th.

Published on November 27, 2023 06:27

Reading time: 2 minutes

A bomb shelter on the streets of Sderot, southern Israel, November 5, 2023. (NEIL HALL / EPA)

Almost two months after the October 7 massacres, Shalom returns to his home in Sderot, the city where he was born 66 years ago. He doesn’t dare turn off the engine of his car, it’s been a long time since it was driven and he doesn’t know if it will start again. On the fourth and final day of the ceasefire and exchanges between Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, Monday November 27th, it is not yet a return to normal life, but at least a return to life in these cities that were evacuated.

Sderot is very close to Gaza. When it was time to leave, Shalom refused to go to the hotels reserved for refugees on the shores of the Dead Sea. He spent the entire time with his family in northern Israel, in Kiryat Shmona, exactly in the target area of ​​the Lebanese Hezbollah. And he feels safer at home: “It’s much more dangerous there than here. In the north there are only explosions, rocket launches or alarms. In Sderot the situation is quieter. We also rebuilt the Iron Cathedral.” “I’ve been here since this morning and I haven’t even heard a rocket alarm.”

Sderot, ghost town

Sderot is not yet the city that Shalom knows so well. This resident returns there angry at those who allowed Hamas to arm itself and thrive, he says, including the generals he has seen marching through his city for the past 20 years. “The day the first homemade mortar shell fell, I think it should have been the last. And it grew over and over again over the years,” Shalom remembers. “The first mortar gradually became the size of a rat. They became the size of half a street lamp. Now a rocket destroys a house.

In Simon’s spooky neighborhood, the only sound that can be heard is drones flying over Gaza. Every now and then one of her neighbors comes by to pick up things. Apart from shopping, he only goes to the synagogue to pray. “There is no one there except these neighbors and a woman who arrived this week, that’s all. The whole area is empty, it’s sad,” complains Simon.

“It’s really sad, it doesn’t make sense.”

Simon, living in Sderot

in franciffo

Sderot continues to uncover the horrors of October 7th. A few days ago, the body of a Hamas fighter was recovered from the sewers beneath the rubble of the city’s police station, which has since been completely razed by the Israeli authorities.