The Sderot International Resilience Complex is the largest center of its kind in Israel, providing emotional resilience therapy for the city’s residents.
KKL-JNF has supported the Resilience Complex in providing essential therapy to help Sderot residents deal with the ongoing trauma of living within rocket fire from Gaza for many years.
In normal times, the center offers 70,000 hours of treatment annually for individual, family, and group therapy, free of charge.
Since the terrible events of October 7, when Hamas terrorists murdered 1,400 people and took 240 hostages, the situation has been anything but normal.
In Sderot alone, the terrorists murdered 45 people and took over the police station until Israeli forces regained control. In the first weeks of the war, the Complex’s team of first responders worked 24/7, visiting the homes of those who needed emotional assistance.
Due to ongoing rocket fire, the city’s 30,000 residents have been evacuated to hotels in Eilat, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, and Netanya.
The Sderot Resilience Complex has responded to the mental health emergency by providing treatment to Sderot residents at all of the hotels throughout Israel, where they are currently located.
“We are providing the same types of treatment in the hotels that we were offering at the Resilience Complex,” said Dorel Abramovitz, director of resource development for Sderot.
“We have to understand that this is only the beginning,” he continued. “The events that took place will take years to overcome. After the war, we will need to provide more therapy because the entire city is in trauma. If we were providing 70,000 hours annually in normal times, at a minimum, we will need to double this amount.”
Abramovitz added that the current Resilience Complex building in the city is not large enough to house all of the therapy sessions that will be required in the coming years.
“We will need to build an additional building because of the increase in therapy that will be required,” he said. “KKL-JNF will be there for us. They will be at our side, just as they have always been in the past.”
Abramovitz’s words were echoed by KKL-JNF Chairwoman Ifat Ovadia-Luski.
"Since the beginning of the war, KKL-JNF has been working around the clock to provide comprehensive and crucial assistance to displaced Israelis and members of the security forces, for tens of millions of shekels,” said Ovadia-Luski.
“We consider the Resilience Complex as a crucial tool to support the victims of this war and therefore we are helping to promote its activity and the necessary expansion,” she added. “We all have the duty to look at the future with great hope for healing and recovery from this deep crisis.”
Many vital projects have been made possible thanks to the support of KKL-JNF friends worldwide. To donate to KKL-JNF and support the Sderot International Resilience Complex, as well as many other initiatives to help Israelis in need and soldiers, click here.
This article was written in cooperation with KKL-JNF.