report
The Israeli city of Sderot lies on the border with the Gaza Strip. The horror of war is very close here. Since the Hamas terrorist attack, the few remaining residents have been united by fear – and great anger.
From the Israeli city of Sderot you have a direct view of the Gaza Strip. The hatred here after the Hamas terrorist attack remains high.
If you want to get an impression of what war sounds like and what it looks like, you first have to march. It goes over thorny bushes onto a hill. The border fence with Gaza is less than a kilometer away as the crow flies. When you get to the top you hear the horror of war and you see it.
The sound of artillery fire and the Israeli Air Force’s attack flights are followed by heavy explosions in the Gaza Strip. White, sometimes dark smoke appears on the horizon.
Return to the unknown
The tanks directly behind the fence are kicking up a lot of dust as they advance towards Gaza City. And the thought always comes to mind: How are the people on the other side of the border fence doing? How do they survive this horror of war?
The hill that provides this unobstructed view of the war is on the outskirts of Sderot, a ghost town. Sderot was evacuated early; The majority of the population has moved in with relatives for safety reasons, and many have been accommodated in hotels in Eilat on the Red Sea.
Emmy Tsefania also fled Sderot and is now returning. “It’s not easy to return to the city after this Black Saturday,” she says. “It’s the first time for me to be back in the city. My husband begged me to come back. He told me not to be afraid and that he would always stay close to me.” She can imagine that everyone would be afraid to come back. “I don’t know what will happen. Nobody can say.”
The anger is great
Emmy and her husband Itzhak stand on the hill and look across to Gaza. Apparently just a stone’s throw away – but it’s a completely different world.
It’s not easy being here and hearing all the detonations, but how do you say? They were looking for trouble. Ultimately we are innocent. We did nothing. They attacked us.
There is great anger after the terrorist attack on October 7th. Itzhak Tsefania, Emmy’s husband, is talking himself into a rage. Many of those who took part in the massacre were civilians, he says. You can see this clearly in the videos. “It was civilians who came over and murdered with their bare hands. It’s not just Hamas. They’re all Hamas. All of them,” he says.
Nothing is the same anymore
Hamas is to be wiped out – that is the Israeli government’s declared goal of this war. A war that you can experience frighteningly close from this hill. Itzhak Stefania also makes it dependent on whether his family will continue to live in Sderot in the future. “When Hamas is no more, we will return here,” he says. “If Hamas continues to exist, then we will retreat into the interior of the country.”
Emmy and her husband Itzhak take another look at the battered Gaza Strip, hear the heavy explosions and go back to the ghost town of Sderot. Nothing is the same here anymore – on both sides of the border fence.