Sderot (Hebrew: שְׂדֵרוֹת‎) is a western Negev city in the Southern District of Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), at the end of 2006 the city had a total population of 19,300. The city has been an ongoing target of Qassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. In March 2008, the mayor said the population had declined by 10%-15% as families left the city in desperation (aid organizations say the figure is closer to 25%). Many of the families that remain cannot afford to move out or are unable to sell their homes.

Sderot, less than a mile from Gaza, has borne the brunt of Palestinian rocket attacks since 2000. These have killed 13 residents, wounded hundreds, caused millions of dollars in damage, and disrupted daily life as well as the local economy. Nearly all residents have been traumatized by the frequent sound of air-raid sirens and explosions of incoming projectiles. All local schools have been fortified. From mid-June 2007 to mid-February 2008, 771 rockets and 857 mortar bombs were fired at Sderot and the western Negev, an average of three or four each a day. Studies done in recent years show that the continued rocket fire and the large number of shock victims have led to post traumatic stress disorder among many of Sderot's residents (close to 30%).

Sderot was founded in 1951 next to the Gevim-Dorot transit camp, partly on the lands of the Arab village of Najd. The first inhabitants of Sderot were Kurdish and Persian refugees who lived in tents and shacks before permanent housing was completed in 1954. In the 1961 census, the percentage of North African immigrants, mostly from Morocco, was 87% in the town, whilst another 11% of the residents were immigrants from Kurdistan. In the 1950s, the city continued to absorb a large number of immigrants from Morocco and Romania, and was declared a local council in 1958.