Sderot

Overview

Sderot is a city in the northern Negev region of Israel, near Gaza. Founded beside a transit camp in 1951, it grew through successive waves of immigration and became a city in 1996. Its history combines the development of an immigrant community with prolonged exposure to rocket fire from terrorist groups in Gaza. From the early 2000s, attacks killed and wounded residents, struck homes and schools, interrupted education and affected daily decisions about travel, work and shelter. The October 7 attacks brought a different form of violence into Sderot: Hamas terrorists entered the city, killed residents and police officers, and fought Israeli forces at its police station. Israel subsequently evacuated the city. Residents began returning in 2024, while questions about security and the effects of displacement remained central to their recovery.

Geography

Sderot lies in Israel’s western Negev, close to Gaza. It became the westernmost development town in the northern Negev after its founding. That location has shaped both its growth and its security conditions. Rockets fired from Gaza have reached its residential streets, educational buildings and open areas. The short interval between an air-raid warning and a possible impact has required residents to keep shelters close to ordinary activities. Schools and kindergartens have been reinforced against rocket fire, and shelters have become familiar features of the city. Proximity to Gaza also made Sderot one of the Israeli communities directly exposed to the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023.

Jewish history

Sderot was established in 1951 beside the Gevim-Dorot transit camp during the years when Israel was absorbing large numbers of Jewish immigrants and refugees. Most of its first residents were Kurdish and Persian refugees. They initially lived in tents and shacks; permanent structures began to replace temporary accommodation in 1954. Those conditions made the construction of housing an immediate part of the settlement’s development. The early community grew as families established permanent homes and local institutions in the northern Negev.

Immigration changed Sderot’s composition during the 1950s. The town absorbed many arrivals from Morocco and Romania. By 1961, immigrants from Morocco accounted for 87 percent of its residents, while immigrants from Kurdistan accounted for 11 percent. These figures describe a community that had changed substantially since its first residents arrived. A later wave came during the Aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Sderot’s population doubled during that decade, adding another major chapter to the city’s history of immigration.

Modern history

Sderot was declared a local council in 1958, seven years after its founding. Its transition from transit-camp settlement to permanent development town took place alongside the construction of housing and the arrival of new immigrant communities. The local council governed a town whose population had expanded beyond its initial Kurdish and Persian families and continued to grow through immigration. The large Soviet immigration wave of the 1990s accelerated that growth. In 1996, Sderot was officially declared a city.

City status marked an administrative change, but Sderot’s development remained tied to its position in the western Negev. Its residents built families, schools and communal life near Gaza. From 2001 onward, repeated rocket attacks increasingly shaped how those institutions operated. The effects reached beyond periods of active fire: homes needed accessible protected spaces, schools planned around alarms, and parents and children faced recurring uncertainty about whether a normal day could continue.

Security

Terrorist groups in Gaza repeatedly fired rockets into Israel’s western Negev from 2001 through the start of 2009. Sderot was a frequent target from 2004 through 2009. Rockets struck kindergartens, apartment buildings and other civilian sites. Children killed in attacks on the city included a two-year-old and two four-year-olds. Many other residents were wounded. The danger extended to students and staff: rocket alarms interrupted lessons, schools closed during periods of fire, and students at times attended classes underground. The repeated attacks made sheltering part of ordinary civilian life.

Individual incidents show the range of harm. On February 7, 2008, a rocket struck a garage beside a Sderot home, started a fire and sent three people into shock. On February 27, a rocket struck the Sapir College campus near Sderot and killed a 30-year-old student. On April 28, one rocket directly hit a house in Sderot and another landed beside a school; paramedics treated several people for shock. A barrage on May 10 damaged a synagogue, while another rocket set a field ablaze. These strikes damaged places used for study, worship and daily domestic life, as well as causing deaths and injuries.

Rocket fire continued even during periods described as ceasefires. Dozens of rockets were fired into Sderot and other western Negev communities during a five-month Israel–Hamas ceasefire. During Israel’s December 2008–January 2009 military operation in Gaza, Sderot schools closed as Hamas fired rockets at civilian buildings. Later attacks showed that the threat had not ended with that period. A rocket from Gaza landed in a Sderot kindergarten courtyard in December 2017, damaging the building when it was empty. On July 14, 2018, a rocket struck a Sderot home and wounded three Israelis; another struck an empty synagogue. In 2019, rockets damaged a kindergarten and a religious school in separate incidents.

The human cost cannot be measured by rocket counts or immediate casualties alone. Attacks interrupted schooling, required repeated sheltering and left lasting psychological harm. A study by the Israeli Center for Victims of Terror and War found post-traumatic stress disorder in 28 percent of Sderot adults and 30 percent of children. Residents described planning journeys around access to shelters and reacting with fear to sudden loud sounds. Reinforced buildings reduced some physical risks, but they could not remove the strain of living with recurring alarms or restore time lost from classrooms and ordinary family routines.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Sderot. Dozens entered the city and killed residents. Attackers assaulted the police station, killed police officers and barricaded themselves inside. Israeli police and military forces fought them through the night and into the following morning. Israeli forces destroyed the station during the battle to defeat the terrorists inside it. The assault turned Sderot’s long experience of attacks launched from Gaza into a direct invasion of its streets and civic institutions.

Residents stayed indoors during the first three days of the war because Hamas terrorists continued to threaten the city. Israel evacuated Sderot residents to hotels at the Dead Sea on the fifth day of the war. Sderot was the largest city evacuated after the October 7 attacks. The move separated families from their homes, workplaces and schools for months. It also made the conditions for return a question of physical security: residents who had lived through years of rocket fire had now experienced armed attackers inside the city itself.

Present day

Some evacuated residents had returned to Sderot by February 2024, while others remained away because of security concerns and the effects of the attack. Families housed in the Dead Sea hotel district had to sustain routines outside their homes. Children evacuated there attended school remotely, continuing their education while separated from familiar classrooms and classmates. For returning families, the decision involved more than reopening a residence. It meant judging whether children could travel to school, whether daily activities could resume and whether another direct attack could be prevented.

On March 3, 2024, Sderot reopened educational institutions from day care centers through high schools, almost five months after the Hamas invasion. About half of the city’s registered students attended classes on the first day. Some had stayed in Sderot during the evacuation period; others had recently returned. Hundreds of therapeutic personnel and educational staff supported the reopening, while security forces increased their presence in the city. The students came back after experiences that differed sharply from one another, including time spent under threat in Sderot and months of displacement elsewhere.

Reopening schools was a significant step in restoring community life, yet attendance on the first day also showed that the return was gradual. Children faced the sounds of nearby fighting, memories of October 7 and the disruption of prolonged evacuation. Families weighed those concerns against the value of familiar schools, teachers and classmates. Sderot’s recovery therefore included both the practical work of resuming education and the sustained care needed by people affected by rocket attacks, invasion and displacement. Its future as a place to raise children remains closely connected to lasting security against another assault.