Three years after dozens of Israelis were killed on the streets of Sderot during the Hamas-led massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the city’s population has seen a boom, and now, Sderot’s residents are courting summer visitors to showcase the city’s resiliency.
In 2023, according to population statistics, Sderot was home to 35,477 people. Sderot Deputy Mayor Elad Kalimi told The Jerusalem Post last week that number was now at around 42,000, marking a nearly 20% rise in under three years.
“It's magic. It's a miracle,” Kalimi said, speaking to the Post at Sderot’s newly opened Cafe Chico, adding that the community was a symbol of “strength” and “overcoming.”
“We want visitors who come here to the city to see and meet the heroism and the strength of our community,” he said.
Rapid growth is not new to Sderot. Population data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that from 2021 through 2023, the city’s population rose by about 5,000. And now, Kalimi says, Sderot is building another five new neighborhoods that he projects will grow the city’s population to 70,000.
“When we live here in Sderot, it's not just having an apartment. We're doing a Zionist act,” he said.
Sderot has a spirit of "unbreakability," Kalimi said
Kalimi reflected that the city had a lot of pain, but that even with the troubles from before October 7, 2023, and then the disaster of the massacres themselves, the city embodied a “spirit of unbreakability.”
“We are not breaking. Never, never breaking,” he said. “It's something that’s unique to Sderot, and it's caused people to come here. People from all over the country. All kinds of people; religious and non-religious, younger and older, come here to Sderot because they feel this unique spirit.”
Another prominent Sderot resident, Aryeh Cohen, also spoke to the Post at Cafe Chico. The cafe was named in honor of his son, IDF Captain Shiloh Cohen, nicknamed “Chico.”
Capt. Cohen, a commander in the Shaldag unit, was 24-years-old when he was killed fighting terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023.
Aryeh Cohen recounted his son’s actions on the day he watered a nearby clementine tree that was relocated from Be’eri to Sderot. Next to the tree, a charred piece of a building also relocated from Sderot bears a plaque honoring Capt. Shiloh Cohen.
“Shiloh understood on that day that there was no time to wait for instructions from commanders,” Aryeh Cohen said. “He left the house, and he didn’t have his gun with him, so he took his brother’s gun and hitchhiked.”
After that, Cohen said his son joined some soldiers from the elite special reconnaissance unit, Sayeret Matkal.
“Shiloh woke up at around 7:00 am, left the house at 9:30, and at around 11:30 he was already fighting in Mefalsim.”
After fighting there, Capt. Cohen eventually made it to Be’eri.
“In the end, Shiloh was killed at around 5:30 pm.” Cohen recounted, adding that, despite that, he believed if it were all to happen again, his son would make all the same choices.
Children in Sderot grow up under threat of terrorism
Karen Kalfa, a Sderot schoolteacher who immigrated to Israel from Montreal 25 years ago, recounted how her children had all grown up under threat of terrorism from Gaza.
“I have six kids. My oldest son is 18 and a half, and while he was growing up, he was exposed to many Qassam (rocket) attacks or many times that there was war in Israel,” she told the Post.
On October 7, she said, she began calling up her students to make sure they were ok. Some never answered.
“I lost many, many of my own students, and my colleagues, and friends, and neighbors,” she said. And so, for me, October 7 was not only a loss because of my town, but also because of the community I work at.”
Still, she said that the pain Sderot endured was something that worked to make the community stronger.
“Living in Sderot was always a special thing because the rockets and all the trauma that the community went through is something that brought us together,” she said. “No one can understand what I go through unless he's from Sderot.”
The residents of Sderot spoke to the Post ahead of an August 11 event that is part of an initiative to bring more visitors to the city this summer.
The event will occur in English and will feature a tour of Sderot, led by local residents who will share their stories of the city. Among other things, it will also include a visit to Cafe Chico.
Space is limited. Advance registration is required by email at hilam@reut-sderot.org.il or via WhatsApp at 058-492-2986.