“The Shield of Our Nation:” Sderot’s Resilience in the Face of Immense Tragedy
When you only have 15 seconds to run to a bomb shelter at the sound of a siren, buckling your seatbelt is a safety hazard. In Sderot, how long it takes you to read this paragraph is how long you have to duck down during rocket attacks from Gaza.
Which began way before October 7.
“When I am traveling in the car I never put on a seatbelt,” Rabbi Asher Pizem, the Chabad Rabbi of Sderot, told Israel365 News. “If I put on a seatbelt and I lost a second [trying] to open it [during rocket fire], then it’s possible to lose your life.”
Living in Sderot Before October 7
Located less than a mile from the enclave, Hamas terrorists have launched over 20,000 rockets into Sderot since 2001. This Israeli city, which has many streets named after figures from the Bible, is also filled with bomb shelters. Playgrounds, schools, bus stops, and homes: every single building is constructed to withstand rockets.
As Elor Tawill got into his car in Sderot, his bright yellow Magen David Adom (MDA) vest hanging over the top of the passenger seat, he said the exact same thing about his seatbelt. “Living in Sderot before [Oct. 7], you knew that you need to look up for danger,” he told Israel365 News.
Yet, in spite of the rocket fire, Rabbi Ari Katz, Director of Public Relations at the Max and Ruth Schwartz Yeshivat Hesder Sderot, a religious institution that combines Torah study with national army service, emphasized that the city has always been a very safe place. “People used to ask me, ‘Is it safe to drive down to Sderot?’” Rabbi Katz told Israel365 News. “I felt the question is very funny because I said it’s like driving to Rehovot or Tel Aviv or Beit Shemesh; there is nothing dangerous about driving to Sderot.”
At the same time, Tawill, a resident of Sderot, noted that the possibility of a small number of terrorists infiltrating the city was not unthought of before Oct. 7. “Israel is the only normal state in the toughest neighborhood in the middle east, so we [know] that everyone around [us is] actually trying to kill us,” he said. “We understand that in Gaza, if they have the ability to do that, they will do it.”
While Tawill believed that the army and residents with guns would be able to hold off a small terrorist incursion into the town, he never imagined an attack as severe as Oct.7 ever occurring.
October 7
On Oct. 7, over 100 terrorists infiltrated Sderot at three locations throughout the city. Over 70 residents were murdered that day. “They just killed every civilian that they saw, with RPGs, with gunfire,” Tawill said. “Everyone.”
One group of terrorists overtook the city’s police station and a major battle ensued. After 12 hours of fierce fighting, the police station, at that point with only terrorists inside, was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force. Over 30 police officers and civilians were killed.
More terrorists approached synagogues near the Gaza border, one of which had 20 people inside. Two Israeli men with guns managed to hold them off. Another group of terrorists entered Sderot in the east and drove along the main road, killing everyone in sight. The terrorists carried maps with specific details about the entire city, from where different buildings were located to how many people resided in each one.
Yeshivat Hesder Sderot
As the largest Hesder Yeshiva in the country, on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Yeshivat Hesder Sderot has a tradition of sending students to all the different synagogues in the city in order to bring joy to the town on this day.
This past Simchat Torah, that tradition did not take place.
Located in the center of the city, Yeshivat Hesder Sderot is an integral part of the Sderot community. “The Yeshiva is a microcosm of the entire city,” Rabbi Katz said. “They have been there in good times [and] bad times for the people.”
On Oct.7, when rocket sirens started sounding, it was not until they started hearing gunfire that students realized something horrible was happening. Students who volunteer for MDA, a volunteer emergency medical service, went outside to the police station, located three minutes from the Yeshiva, and saw trucks with Arab license plates and men with guns. The students rushed back to the Yeshiva and told the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Fendel, what they saw. About six students serving in the army who were at the Yeshiva went to the police station to engage in fighting while the remaining five stayed at the Yeshiva to defend it. Supposedly, one student killed two terrorists.
The terrorists never reached the Yeshiva, which hundreds of students attend. The police say it was because they were pinned down by the police at the station. Rabbi Katz attributes it to a miracle. “The same Yeshiva that for 30 years has been there for the people, Simchas Torah was no exception,” he said. “This is really heroism… They just went down with their guns and started fighting.”
The Yeshiva has an immense impact on all the students who walk through its doors. Tawill, a former student, drove his ambulance in Sderot treating the injured on Oct. 7. “I always said to the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Fendel, that many of the things that I did on that day came from him, from the Yeshiva,” he said.
Tawill believes that learning Torah specifically in Sderot builds the character of those who attend, giving them a sense of purpose as to why they are learning where they are learning. “The Torah is in general something that makes you good and it gives you strength and it gives you hope,” he said. “When you study it in a place like [Sderot], in the Yeshiva over here, in a city like that, you get even more than [studying] in a ‘normal’ place.”
“What happened on Oct. 7 started in the summer of 2005”
19 years ago, the IDF withdrew its remaining presence from the Gaza strip and forced the remaining residents of Gush Katif, the main Israeli community there, out with them. Rabbi Katz, who lived in Gush Katif for a little over a year, stated that those who lived there warned the Israeli government that the withdrawal would lead to rocketfire not only intensifying in Sderot, but also starting in Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Tel Aviv.
“A year and a half later Hamas already had control over the whole Gaza strip,” he said. “We weren’t prophets, but you didn’t have to be that smart to know that that was what was gonna happen.”
Ever since that day, Hamas was preparing for their attack 19 years later. “We were good to them. We got out from Gaza 19 years ago,” Tawill said. “We brought them everything on a silver plate, and they, for the last 19 years [planned] Oct.7.”
In order for the citizens of Israel to finally feel safe in their own homes again, Hamas must be completely destroyed. The genocidal terrorists with whom they have shared a border for far too long must be eradicated from this world. Simply saying “never again is now” is not enough, because Oct. 7 never should have happened in the first place.
A Message to America
For months after Oct. 7, Tawill could not stop smelling the burning smell of smoke. “There is a saying that it took 70 years to deny the Holocaust and seven and a half months to deny Oct. 7,” he said. “I don’t think anyone can see [Hamas] as humans after what they did on Oct. 7, to kids, to babies, to girls, to youths, to elderlies.” Now, when children go to the library for a book, they will see the bus stop outside the entrance and remember that terrorists killed 15 elderly people there, some of them Holocaust survivors.
“The world will get this wakeup call,” he said.
Both Rabbi Katz and Tawill emphasized greatly that those in America must bear witness to the atrocities of Oct.7. “Let them all come and see with their own eyes what happened in Sderot and the rest of the south,” Rabbi Katz said. “That no one should be able to deny what happened ever again.”
Most importantly, after one of the worst attacks in the State’s history, Rabbi Katz emphasized that Americans must know that Israel will fight this war by any means necessary. “America has to understand that we have the right to defend ourselves and we are going to make the decisions how to do that,” he said. “Defend itself means that [Israel will] have to make sure that the people living in the State of Israel feel safe and secure, in all of Israel.” That means all the way from the Golan Heights in the north, which is currently under attack from Hezbollah, all the way to the south.
Sderot: The Shield of Israel
The fact that the residents of Sderot live in such close proximity to the Gaza strip protects the existence of the entire State of Israel. “Living in Sderot, you are currently the shield of your entire nation,” Tawill said. “If we wouldn’t have been here [that day], then Tel Aviv wouldn’t have been here, and Jerusalem.”
The citizens of Sderot have shown immense strength in the face of extreme hardship, and fought fervently for their home on Oct. 7, running into the fire to save others. “I call them modern day heroes,” Rabbi Katz said. “They are resilient people. They have gone through hard times [but] they don’t give up.”
For many residents of Sderot, living in the city has deep ideological significance, which after Oct. 7, has become even more crucial. “This war has shown how important it is to be in Sderot, right on the border,” Rabbi Katz said. “It’s a statement,” he continued, “We are here. This is Israel. We are not going anywhere.”
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