October 24th 2023: Third Report

 

October 24^th 2023

Dear Family and friends,

Report number three.

Ten days have passed. The three nephews are still mobilized, tho Avi has been sent home on condition he return to his unit at a moment’s notice. There are thousands like him.

We’re tensely waiting and wondering why the ground offensive hasn’t started. I think the Americans aren’t allowing us. But maybe we’re waiting for more hostages to be freed. Or Netanyahu is a coward. Or he’s canny. Who knows.

Speaking of the Americans, President Biden is far and away Israel’s most popular leader. He gave a profoundly empathetic and supportive speech, even as our guy was spewing out his usual blatant lies. He sent aircraft carriers, and tons of military aid. When he visited last week, he probably had 90% of the Israelis enthusiastically appreciating him. Netanyahu’s ratings, meanwhile, are at their worst ever. Most of us assume Biden is smothering Netanyahu with public support in order to prevent him from all sorts of idiotic ideas he might have. Note to the American voters on this list: Even as Netanyahu’s own cabinet ministers are badmouthing him (still anonymously), and he’s carefully not showing his face in public, Biden looks like a true leader, experienced, careful, and not at all old in the negative sense. Although his memories of Golda Meir do date him a bit.

Enough about the politicians. At some point in the coming months, we’ll cast Netanyahu into the pit of eternal infamy where he belongs, but that will be a story for then. The other day I published an op-ed (Hebrew) saying that while we must beat Hamas now, next year we’ll need to go in the opposite direction and prepare the ground for the Two State Solution, lest the violence go on forever. I was surprised by the extent of agreement this garnered. My expectation was that I’d antagonize my readers with talk of reconciliation, even as we battle genocidaires. But apparently not. Even one or two of my settler friends admitted that I might have a point. Our current government vehemently disagrees, but they’re going to be gone soon.

Since there’s comparatively little action – comparative being the operational word – we’ve got the time for a prolonged and detailed look at what happened on October 7-8^th. Each passing day the picture gets worse. The depth and breadth of the horror, the pain and the sorrow. And the extent of the heroism. So today I’m going to tell some of the stories we’re immersing ourselves in. First, the horror. (Feel free to skip the next paragraph).

The national center for forensic pathology faces an unprecedented task of identifying more than a thousand corpses. They started with the easy cases, but now they’re knee-deep in the worst ones. Plastic bags of human remains, with information about their origin – which house in which village. Many are so charred there’s no DNA left, no identifying signs. One pile of charcoal, upon being scanned, revealed the spinal cords of a man and a young child, tied together with metal wire so they couldn’t move. Israel has committed its share of stupidity and crimes, but nothing remotely as evil as that.

There are stories of sacrifice. Hundreds and hundreds. Here are two. A young family of five, barricaded in their strongroom. The marauders shot into the room. The father shot back but was felled. His wife took the pistol and continued shooting until the terrorists gave up and decided to burn down the home. She stanched the flow of blood from her husband’s wound with her hand, until the smoke seeping into the room was almost lethal. She had no choice but to get up and open the window, lest their children suffocate. He agreed. They told each other how great their love was, then she took her hand out of his wound, and opened the window as he died. Hours later someone forced open the door, and she put herself between it and her children so that she be shot and they spared. This time it was IDF troops.

The second story is about Neta Epstein and his fiancée Iren. In their early 20s, in love, planning to marry on April 24th. (Iren: “I’ve got the wedding dress in the cabinet, but Neta said he didn’t want to see it until the event”).  That terrible morning they were in their strongroom. Eventually the murderers forced the door and threw in grenades. They survived the first three, but the fourth fell too close. Neta jumped onto it, absorbing the full force of the blast; he was also then shot. Under the bed and behind his body, the terrorists didn’t see her. For hours they wandered in and out but never saw her. Eventually soldiers rescued her. As they took her out to the waiting vehicle, she begged them to take Neta, too.

She later posted him a letter. “You promised you’d always protect me. You did.  I lay there and watched as your soul left your body. You also promised you’d always stay with me. But some promises can’t be kept.”

She told the TV crew she couldn’t yet grasp he’s gone. “What I most hope for is that he’ll appear in my dream and tell me he’s alright, wherever he is. Only then will I be able to start moving on. And because he gave his life for me, I’ll live it in a way that makes him proud of me.”

I gave you a story of poignant horror and terror. Stories of heroism, sacrifice, and love. Here’s a story of heroism, the abject failure of our systems, and the steel which makes this place invincible, in spite of the worst efforts of our leadership.

Yoel Amitai commands a company of tank reservists. Men in their late 30s and early 40s, who were in the process of being disbanded. They no longer had tanks; they were sort of appended to a larger unit without really being part of it anymore. A bureaucratic limbo that can go on for months, or a year. Nothing’s urgent.

At 7:30 AM that Saturday morning he wrote on the company’s WhatsApp list that everybody should be ready. At 8:30 he sent out a laconic message – I’ve seen a screenshot of it from Guy, a friend who’s an officer in the company. “Everyone to Ze’elim NOW, and tell your platoon commanders to report on who’s coming so we see the numbers”. (Everyone came). Ze’elim is a large training center for reservists.  There are lots of training tanks there, detached from whatever units they notionally belong to. It lies 30 miles southeast of Gaza.

They converged on the tarmac where the tanks were parked, and essentially stole them. They were only partially equipped and armed, so they raided the munitions depot and the equipment storage. No one bothered to be officially mobilized, and there was no-one around who could have inducted them anyway. Some stole rifles from the base, others convinced local soldiers that their need was greater, and “borrowed” them. If they managed to find uniforms and boots, they donned them; if not, not. As each tank reached full munitions and equipment, Yoel sent it off to one of the villages or towns that were under attack, and off they went. They navigated with Waze. Legally, they were all still civilians, and militarily they were detached from any observable chain of command. It appears Yoel was in contact with his own commanding officer, who apparently joined them during the afternoon – as an individual, not as a brigade commander. By early afternoon they were all in battle; some of them collected rifles from dead or wounded fighters as they went.

Guy remained with Yoel, and they reached Be’eri, one of the largest and worst-hit kibbutzim.  They found some fighters from the legendary Sayeret Matcal commando unit, who themselves may or may not have been plugged into the normal chain of command, and also with some of the kibbutzniks, who were reading the kibbutz WhatsApp lists. The commandos and the locals figured out which homes had terrorists but no civilians in them, and the tanks shelled them to kill the Hamas fighters. “We were in the middle of the kibbutz destroying homes”, Guy told me.

They fought for two days, then coalesced back together. Their cars and personal equipment were still in Ze’elim, so they commandeered a large IDF truck that Hamas had captured and then abandoned. No, there’s no-one in the unit authorized to drive a truck, and certainly not a truck with no official documents, and Ze’elim is swamped by high brass and military police, but Guy assures me they’re driving back and forth daily, bringing additional supplies, and no-one has stopped them.

While Ze’elim seems unwittingly to be supplying them with food, they’ve given up on being equipped thru the usual channels. Given that many of them are 40-ish and well established in normal life, they’ve activated their personal networks and have collected funds for whatever equipment they need. Guy claims they’re the envy of all the surrounding units for the level of their gear and kit. They’re also attracting other disconnected troops. Instead of IDF medics, for example, they’ve got two full MDs whom they found somewhere. The upper-levels have apparently been scratching their heads wondering what to do with them, and the troops are avoiding publicity since it’s not clear if they should be jailed or hailed. I’ve heard an interview with Yoel, in which he downplays their achievements, and mostly obfuscates. In the meantime, it appears the commander of Golani, one of our most hallowed infantry brigades with a long history of, shall we say, rambunctiousness, has officially or perhaps unofficially annexed them to serve as Golani’s armored branch for the invasion of Gaza. (Pinchas was an officer in Golani many years ago).

Guy has regaled me with lots of additional details. I’ve told him I don’t believe a single word of any of it, but he’s sent me proof, and anyways, the whole story corresponds – I say this with deep sadness – with our national story these days. Our leaders are ghastly. Our government is missing in action. The governing apparatus, shot thru with inept officials appointed for loyalty to Netanyahu rather than qualifications, is incompetent. The military has demonstrated its inability to understand the world, or to prevent the consequences of their blindness.  Yet the nation, the citizenry, the reservists and soldiers and tens of thousands of volunteers – they’re all magnificent. They’ve risen to the challenge, and they’re saving the day, and the country. There’s a grim joke making the rounds, about a nation of lions led by asses. The worst part of the joke is that it’s true.

Yaacov