We are all Sderot

(JNS) — The city of Sderot is located less than a mile from the Gaza Strip. Some 90 percent of the town’s 30,000 residents fled on Oct. 7 after Hamas invaded southern Israel. My wife’s cousin Ilan is currently stationed with his IDF infantry unit in what was until recently a Sderot elementary school. The happy, high-pitched yelping of children has been replaced by the metallic sounds of assault rifles being taken apart, cleaned and reassembled by soldiers.

We were visiting Ilan’s family in Nahariya, Israel’s northernmost coastal city, when his mother told us that she had just gotten off the ph...