The war in Israel is turning young kids into adults all too soon. Their physical wounds may heal, but the terror, blood and death will haunt their dreams for years. “I can't sleep. The images of what happened keep me awake at night,” said the young soldier.
Israel File: Children, Soldiers, Heroes
The war in Israel is turning young kids into adults all too soon. Their physical wounds may heal, but the terror, blood and death will haunt their dreams for years. “I can’t sleep. The images of what happened keep me awake at night,” said the young soldier.
2:00 Tuesday, Sheba Hospital, Tel Hashomer: Yoni, who turned 20 last week, is recovering from surgery. With bone fractures, burns and eye injuries from missile shrapnel, he’d lost a lot of blood and was taken to Ziv hospital in the north, before being transferred to Tel Hashomer. Yoni had three emergency surgeries in less than week, including a skin graft on his shoulder. He was in a lot of pain.
“The military classifies Yoni as ‘lightly wounded,’ his father, Binyamin, himself a retired general, tells me.
Between surgeries, Yoni described for his father the harrowing scene of his unit under attack while they staked out a building in Bint Jbail. He’d been hit, but was in good enough shape to help pull his seriously wounded comrades from the building. Under constant fire, he worked with the other soldiers until the last of the injured were evacuated to two tanks. A third and last tank came in, explains Binyamin, and the remaining soldiers climbed in, with Yoni and his commander hunkering down in a niche in the already full tank.
But before the armored vehicle could roll out of the danger zone, an anti-tank missile struck, killing Yoni’s commander instantly.
“I had a bad feeling that day,” says Binyamin. “So when I got the phone call from the army, I was relieved.” News of fatalities are never delivered to parents by phone.
5:00 Tuesday, Rannana: The magnitude of Roi Klein’s heroism inspires quiet awe. I join the Chabad representative to the city to make this shiva call. He chooses his words carefully as he speaks with the father of the now famous commander who jumped on a grenade to spare his soldiers at the battle in Bint Jbail. There is little that can be said in the presence of such courage.
“He cried out Shema Yisrael, and then jumped on the grenade,” a traumatized 20-year old under Roi’s command told everyone. “He saved my life.”
On the civilian front, the stress is building. It’s been weeks now that people are living in shelters, their lives completely disrupted. Keeping the morale up for those who remain in Israel’s northern cities is a challenge that many Chabad representatives take personally.
Two minutes into my conversation with Yigal Tzipori, I hear thundering booms. This time, they’re outgoing rockets, coming from Tzipori’s backyard where the IDF set up an artillery launcher.
Tzipori is the Chabad representative to Kiryat Shmona. His home is home to the soldiers in the area who shower, eat and sleep there whenever they get a chance. Today Tzipori is also the one-stop address for relief aid to the people that remained—mostly a poor segment of the population, many of them single parent families with no financial means or relatives to allow them to move to safer cities.
The shelters are hardly an alternative to life at home even if home is no more than a crowded two room hovel, but they are an alternative to the rain of Katyushas that lurk outside. So the adults bide their time in musty, unpleasant shelters where they have no privacy and are beginning to feel choked under the circumstances. But the children are climbing the walls. Invariably, and at certain risk, they come up for air and begin to play outside the shelter.
When Chabad volunteers recruited by Tzipori came to Kiryat Shmona last week, he gave them the job of occupying the children so they’d stay inside. With the promise of games and goodies, the children were pulled off the street and back down into the shelter. No sooner were they sitting down to a game and a Katyusha landed right outside on the pavement where the children were playing just a few minutes earlier.
“The miracles,” says Tzipori, “are as constant as the Katyushas that fall.”
Tzipori and the volunteers who come from yeshivas and kibbutzim to help him depend on miracles to do their work. Before the war, the Chabad soup kitchen in Kiryat Shmona served 500 meals daily. Today, the number has grown to 1200, which are delivered under the constant barrage of Katyushas city wide to the shelters and apartments where some people have refused to leave.
Kiryat Shmona has been emptied of more than 60 percent of its population, but Tzipori isn’t running. “The fear is real,” he concedes, “but there are still people here, and I can’t leave them.”
On the street in Kiryat Shmona, a two year old clings to his mother, but doesn’t make a sound, he doesn’t even blink at the sound of falling rockets. He’s on my hands all day,“ his mother says. ”But he no longer says a word.”
chaim
Moshiach should come and comfort all of you young soldiers and all the jews should be whole again.
We bow to your bravery, you soldiers!
You are in our hearts and prayers.
Moshiach NOw!!
WE WANT MOSHAICH NOW~ WE WANT MOSHAICH
AD MOSAI!- AD MOSAI!- AD MOSAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MN
This is really Mesiras Nefesh.
sweet children
I salute the soldiers, of course, their bravery and self sacrifice, and my heart goes out to their families, and another thing that pierces my heart are those poor children "climbing the walls".
I think of my own children, and cry for those.
May we all have Moshiach already, this is just too much to bear. Let’s BRING MOSHIACH!! The REbbe told us how.
LUBAVITCH DOCTOR
SAYING AD MOSAI IS NOT ENOUGH!!!
PLEASE DONATE MONEY TO ISRAEL
WETHER FOR MIVTZAIM (TEFILIN) OR CARE PACKAGES FOR THE FAMILIES OR CHAYALIM
EVERY AMOUNT COUNTS! BE MISHTATIF & HELP OUT BROTHERS AND SISTERS
MASEH BEPOYEL
a chabad girl
Thank you soldiers for your protection!!! Be strong Moshiach is almost here!!
CN
But how many of these same soilders forcibly threw Jews out of their homes last summer?
girl
soldiers if i was a boy i would be in the army ..i just wanted you to know that when i get married iy"h i want to marry a soilder i think you guys are so cool
S Y
Baila – Amazing reporting! Thanks and be safe.
with much tears !!
there are no words just " HASHEM YESHMOR "
we must daven better with more kevonah . and chitas
and to do wat the REBBA told us in 1967 i went with my father z"l with a tephlin car with a banner saying
"tephlinn on the hand 4 people on the go " i was 11 years old …..moshiach now !!!! yci hamech
thank you
thank you soliders , we will win this war a’y
Yehudis E.
If only the Israeli government would listen to the Rebbe, ultimately following what the Torah says regarding giving away land etc. we could have and still could avoid much precious yiddishe lives. and would hasten Moshiach’s revelation.