Casualties are the cost of war. During Israel’s recent Operation Protective Shield, Jews throughout the world expressed their opinions regarding Israel’s military strategy and about each cease-fire and whether it would last. Many wondered how Hamas built so many tunnels undetected by the IDF. And while we heard about Israeli military casualties, they remained an abstract concept to most of us. We knew of them but could not put a face to them.
On Erev Shabbos, August 29, the abstract became concrete when I visited severely wounded Israeli soldiers at Tel Hashomer Sheba Medical Center.
I was part of a group led by Daniel Meyer, executive director of the International Young Israel movement in Israel (IYIM), which included, among others, Ceec Harrishburg, president of IYIM, and Rabbi Reuven Tradburks, executive director of the Rabbinical Council of America’s Israel Division.
These are the stories of some of those soldiers and their families. (The names have been changed with the exception of Ohad at the end of the article.)
When we arrived, Mr. Meyer introduced us to Mrs. A. He knew her from his previous hospital visits. Her son was injured at the beginning of the war and was still in serious condition. She was a single parent from Nahariya with three other children. Due to the hospital’s distance from her home it was impossible for her to travel there on a daily basis. She and her three younger children spent the summer – her children’s entire school vacation – at the hospital.
On the day we met, she was leaving – a rarity – to purchase school clothing for the children. Her birthday was that Shabbos. She told us her gift was her son’s life.
Most soldiers we met were from the Golani Brigade – the first soldiers to enter Gaza. They faced the fiercest resistance.
We saw soldiers sitting outside with their friends and asked if we could join them.
I met Captain B. When his tank entered Gaza, he was looking out the tank’s turret with night goggles. The tank drove into an ambush. He was shot and lost his right thumb. His arm was so badly broken the doctors believed he would lose it as well. But the surgeons managed to save it. His arm was held together by a metal brace system attached to his bones and visible outside his arm. Only after the bones had healed would the doctors attempt to repair the arm’s tendons and ligaments.
We met a soldier who was saved by a miracle. Right before the troops entered Gaza he and four friends were sitting together. They had all just put on tefillin given to them by Chabad. A moment later a mortar fired from Gaza landed in their midst. The soldier’s mother (the soldier himself preferred not to speak about the attack) showed us a picture taken only moments before, with one soldier still wearing tefillin. She said her son was the only one out of the five to survive. Though seriously injured, he was able to sit with his friends while in a wheelchair.
Eli’s recovery was another miracle. He was shot in the leg by a sniper, the bullet going completely through his right leg and entering his left one. Hamas posted a video on the Internet that showed him and his partner walking in the distance. He is seen falling, and Hamas claimed he’d been killed. Doctors told Eli he’d never walk again. But on the day we arrived he walked for the first time – and left his bed to show us. He took two steps. He said when he left the hospitalhe would make his own video showing that the soldier Hamas claimed to have killed was in fact alive and well.