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First Supermarket Opens in Sderot, Israeli City Devastated by Hamas, Five Months After Massacre
Israeli soldiers look at the remains of a police station which was the site of a battle following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The first supermarket in Sderot has reopened more than five months after the Israeli city near the Gaza border was mostly evacuated due to the ongoing war with the Hamas terror group.
“The customers are back; it’s a different world now,” Prosper Peretz, the owner of the store, told Israeli media. “All the familiar faces are back in the store and that makes me happy. I worked throughout the war, even though my house was hit by a rocket. I didn’t give up and I didn’t leave the city.”
His son, Dudu, outlined the history of the store, which was opened in the 1950s by Peretz’s father after he moved to Israel from Morocco.
“Dad’s grocery store was the first in the city that was established in the 1950s. My grandfather, the late David Peretz, opened it and bequeathed it to my father,” Dudu said. “Since then it has been operating.”
The youngest of the three, who was evacuated to the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat with his family in the early days of the Gaza conflict, added, “In the second week of the war, the rocket hit my parents’ house and the store was also damaged. My parents evacuated for only one week, to Eilat, but even during that week that they were in the hotel, my father never stopped complaining that he wanted to go back to the store and open it.”
Now, with residents returning, Dudu’s father finally got the chance to reopen his doors and take part in his favorite aspect of the job: running the meat counter. Calling it his “special love,” Peretz mans the butcher’s corner in the shop, something he has done since a young age due to his deep love for grilled meats.
Sderot is located just over half a mile from the northern border of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and was hit intensively during the Palestinian terror group’s surprise invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, when terrorists killed over 1,200 people and took hostage more than 240. Israel has responded to the massacre with a military offensive aimed at incapacitating Hamas to the point that it no longer poses a serious threat.
In a notable incident during the war, Hamas terrorists took over Sderot’s police station in what became an overnight battle to regain control, leading to the death of 18 members of the police.
An additional 50 civilians were killed by the terrorists throughout the city. Following the attack, most of the city’s more than 30,000 residents were forced to flee from their homes, alongside more than 100,000 others from the region. Like Peretz, many ended up in Eilat, as well as the Dead Sea and Jerusalem areas.
More than five months into the war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) authorized the return of residents to cities near Gaza, including Sderot.
With people mostly back in the city, schools have been able to resume. According to the Education Ministry, 55-60 percent of all students are now back in the classroom.
“Thousands of students and educational staff returning to their natural place, to their home — this is the beginning of revival,” Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch said last week. “For me, this is a kind of second opening of the school year. Congratulations to the students and parents.”
The post First Supermarket Opens in Sderot, Israeli City Devastated by Hamas, Five Months After Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.