What happened on October 7th was completely different:

• Under the cover of a "regular" rocket attack, more than 1 thousand Hamas assassins crossed the border in a surprise attack and entered the towns, kibbutzim and villages near the border of Gaza Strip. They moved from house to house, setting fire to some of them and shooting entire families who were spending the last day of the holiday at home at point blank range.
• Among these horrible acts one should mention the murder of more than 260 young men and women that participated in a music festival in the area.
• Another unimaginable and inhumane event happened in a kibbutz Beeri near Sderot: some 40 babies were burnt to death. Some of them were beheaded prior to the burning.
• In these atrocities, over 1,200 men, women, children and babies were murdered, and more than 2700 injured, of which some 150 are seriously wounded.

To be clear: these numbers are not referring to casualties in a war, but to the murder of civilians in their homes including whole families.

• In addition, over 150 people were kidnapped (including babies, children, women and disabled people, some of them in wheelchairs) and taken to Gaza as hostages.

In Sderot many families lost their homes, some of the kindergartens & schools were dama ged. Many children & their families suffer from trauma and many were evacuated to other places in the central part of Israel.

* By any standard imaginable, these acts of Hamas would be considered a war crime. *

 Rockets are still launched, and the total number exceeded 5,000 already. The IDF (Israel Defense Force) took back the villages and killed the Hamas assassins within our border.  The IDF called its reserves and probably will launch a counterattack in order to eliminate Hamas rule over Gaza.

We intend  to strengthen and support  the population in Sderot and in many of the settlements near the border of the Gaza Strip that were practically annihilated  by the Hamas terrorists and to help those communities restore their homes and their public installations, buildings and services.