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Oct 19, 2023

          On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing hundreds of Israelis according to news outlets. In actuality, my friend Itamar Ben David of Jerusalem says that this attack is far worse than any other war he knows, including the Yom Kippur War. He says that media outlets (which give a conservative figure) don’t report that the actual number of Israeli dead is closer to 1,000. In addition, 2,500 Israeli citizens were injured and approximately 200 have been kidnapped. He stresses that the situation is “extremely dire,” and says, the exhaustion audible in his voice, “It’s happening, it’s really happening.” Itamar says that Israel was built to prevent such disasters, though he believes that “al-Aqsa Flood,” as the operation was known, is a disaster on the scale of the holocaust. “This is a house-to-house, door-to-door masacre,” he says. The attack has been “Nazi-level horror.” Not since WWII has there been an attack on Jews of this scale. The only recourse he and his family have had is to be proactive, a Jewish philosophy. As a father of a toddler himself, Itamar is making it a point to collect toys and games to give to families from the south of Israel in their Jerusalem hotel rooms. He’s been through war before, but never as a father, and so from that perspective this is a new experience for him and he’s doing what he can to mitigate his fears. Luckily, his son has been sleeping through the sirens, and they have a shelter in their apartment. He admires the heroes of the war thus far, such as Generals Yair Golan and Noam Tibon, both of whom saved families in the south of Israel. He also remembers one of his friends and teachers, Hagit Refa’eli, a mother of three, who is missing. A British Israeli lone soldier, Nathaniel Young, is now among the fallen soldiers buried in Mt. Herzl. Thousands of people came for his funeral, and braced themselves as the sirens warning of more rockets started blaring. But Itamar wonders how this fast and dramatic onslaught of 5,000 rockets within the space of 10 minutes could have happened. Most importantly, he wonders where the air force was. The facade of a border wall is obviously not as strong as it was supposed to be, he says, and what would have helped is the combination of the people and the wall (and there were also communication problems). However, the current government was only concerned with one thing – “crushing the supreme court.” He says that the actual soldiers who were supposed to be protecting the border were instead placed elsewhere to serve the government’s objectives. Netanyahu was not focused on the safety of Israel, a country that was originally founded to be a shelter for Jews. There is an orchestrated campaign to blame the army for the crisis, he says, to divert the blame away from Netanyahu, whose governmental policy of “buying peace” from Gaza has been cancerous for Israeli society. “Politicians were irresponsible, completely.” Since approximately 30,000 Palestinians had work permits in Israel before the attack, Itamar believes this war is a disaster for them as well. However, Itamar doesn’t think Netanyahu believed such a massacre of his own people could happen as it did. He says the solidarity the world has shown Israel has been heartwarming, but for one’s own mental health, the media should be consumed in small doses only. At a campaign stop in Boone on Monday, presidential hopeful and former Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, expressed her unequivocal support of Israel by saying that if she were president, she would tell Israel, “whatever it is you need to not just get your country back, but to eliminate the terrorists, we should do.” Iowa flags have been lowered to half staff to honor murdered Israeli citizens, beginning on October 10th. Itamar assures that Israel will be here next year. Though my friend Itamar Ben David is a reserve Captain in the Israeli Army, he has not been called into service at this time. Itamar is also a tour guide in Jerusalem. He has an online group for friends and tourists on WhatsApp and YouTube, where he will try to continue giving updates on Israel at war.