An Iranian attack on Israel has been expected for two weeks now. Airlines have canceled flights, the country is anxious, and televisions are broadcasting news nonstop. Yet precisely now, residents of Sderot, the largest city displaced by the October 7 attacks, are being forced to return home as the government ends its funding of hotel stays for those displaced from the city. That edict applies to disabled and nondisabled residents of Sderot alike.
I am a resident of Sderot and a student of social work at Sapir Academic College, located less than two miles from the border with Gaza. One day before October 7, I left my home with plans to spend three days outside of Sderot. I didn’t know those three days would turn into ten months. Now, in the most tense period since the start of the war, that period is coming to an end.
People ask me why I’m reacting the way I am. I’m supposed to be pleased to finally return to the place that is familiar, beloved, and known to me. I ask: is this place actually protected and calm?
About a year and a half ago, at the end of a regular day of studies, I experienced a rocket siren for the first time outside my house. Like everyone else, I hurried in a panic to the shelter. Everyone managed to get in except for me, because the entrance to the shelter was too narrow for my motorized wheelchair. I felt in those moments that there exists some sort of hierarchy about who gets protected and who doesn’t, and that I, as a young disabled woman, did not have the same rights to security and defense.
After that event, I noticed that my story was just one part of a wider problem. It turns out that in the entire city of Sderot, as in many other places, there’s not a single wheelchair-accessible public shelter.
Since that day, I ask myself: How can disabled people in the line of fire carry on routine life during an emergency wartime period? According to the Home Front Command regulations, when you hear a rocket siren in an area without access to a bomb shelter, you should lie down and cover your head. But most people with physical disabilities, including those who live in the area around Gaza and who are now being compelled to return to the city, are unable to do so. Being outside poses an immediate danger for us.
We can’t return to routine. We can’t work and attend school. Even leaving the house for the grocery store, medical treatment, or just a gathering with friends involve life-threatening risks. Along with many other evacuees, I ask: How are we expected to return home? Which are we supposed to do—protect our lives or return to routine?
Despite the difficulty involved in being an evacuee, these last ten months provided me with a sense of calm. This period gave me a source of routine. It allowed me to gradually leave home for medical treatments, paramedical care, and interactions with society. But I know that when I return home, being protected and safe will mean being stuck at home. That’s the case for the rest of the disabled residents of Sderot as well. This situation is liable to harm not only the safety of disabled evacuees who return home, but also their physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive functioning.
The insistence that evacuees return to their homes, based on the claim that we’ve had decades of experience getting used to living with a security threat, proves yet again the extent to which residents of the periphery, and particularly disabled residents of the periphery, are not seen as a priority. I call on the Ministry of Security, local authorities, and especially the municipality of Sderot, to provide accessible bomb shelters. Until this happens, I’m asking all the relevant government ministries and other actors to immediately lengthen the period of state-funded accommodation outside of the area for residents with disabilities, to allow us to continue in our routine. We don’t need to return to the battleground.
This article was translated from Hebrew by Leah Schwartz.
