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The Battle of Sderot: October 7, 2023 – a.k.a. The Fall of the Sderot Police Station

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Sderot crossing. Photo: Golan Sabag (aurora-israel.co.il)

Prologue

Sderot means boulevard

A beautiful, wide thoroughfare, lined with trees

Boulevard comes from bulwark

Something that protects you from danger

 

Police protect the polis (city)

The public, people, and property

“The police station is the safest place in the city”

A bulwark against outside threats

 

Shai is a municipal police officer, in Sderot, Israel

Shai starts us off with two rules:

1.     If there is a red alert (siren) the protected space (shelter) is over there à (danger still threatens)

2.     Do not record, photograph, or film (people are being killed in these scenes we’re about to see)

***

Shabbat morning, 7th of October, Simchat Torah

These are the first five minutes

When there is a siren, all personnel immediately go to the police station

They need to supplement the on-duty force


6:45 AM

An officer from the intelligence service heard the siren

He and others begin to arrive

A police officer from the station arrives and is shot

Point blank

 

Terrorists are in a truck

They take an RPG

And shoot into the top floor of the police station building

Anther RPG is retrieved from the truck

 

Terrorists are fighting with police officers

Police are positioned on the rooftop

More terrorists are coming in to help

And they’re trying to neutralize the police

 

A terrorist walks over and shoots the driver again

At point blank range

To make sure he’s dead

The car rolls out of control

 

Elsewhere in Sderot… the Swissa family is driving along

The dad is shot, point blank

The policeman says to the mom: “follow me to the police station…

…it’s the safest place in the city”

 

An Israeli Arab, Amer Abu Sabila, tries to help

Amer (who is a Bedouin Arab)

Tells her “I will drive your car for you”

Terrorists surround car and kill both Mom and Amer

 

The terrorists coordinate the attack very efficiently

And move together systematically

Police are still conducting a battle

From the roof, trying to hold them off

 

Another policeman arrives

And is shot and killed on sight

His red car drives out of control onto the sidewalk

Before ramming into a light pole

 

Body cam on a different police officer shows

Him approaching the vehicle

The two little Swissa girls are cowering scared

The big sister protecting the little sister

 

Big sister says:

“Take us! Save us!”

“I’m here with the baby…”

“…save my sister”

 

Their mother lies in the front seat dead, alongside the kind-hearted Bedouin man who tried to help her.

 

6:30 pm

Shai says: “We wanted to take back control…

…of the police station”

They manage to save 10 policemen alive

A miracle

 

Special forces came in through the roof

With firefighters’ equipment

And took the remaining police from the roof alive

While the terrorists took over the building

 

At this point, they understood

There were no more policemen alive in the station

The idea is the importance of life

Before property

Site of the Sderot Police Station - Photo: Ilana Westerman

So they used a Caterpillar D9

To break down the walls

26 Hamas terrorists were fortified in the police station

10 terrorists were killed - a dozen+ wounded

 

That day,

50 Israeli civilians were dead in Sderot by the end of the massacre.

500 rockets hit the city.

The two Swissa girls survived and are now supported and cared for by family members.

***

Shai’s message to us, to take back to our homes and communities in the U.S.

We are still here, even though we experienced the October 7th disaster

We will not be broken

We will not give up

 

Shai continued:

Every single one of you that lives in the United States…

…is an Israeli ambassador

…we are all in a battle against fake news

…we are all fighting on that front”

 

Am Israel Chai

(The People of Israel Live)

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