2nd Israel Report: Losses
Israel Report #2
Rabbi Sam Cohon
Israel suffered its worst one-day loss of life since the October 7th atrocities earlier this week when 24 Israelis died in fighting in Gaza. Hamas managed to collapse a building by firing an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade with multiple explosives, at neighboring buildings in Khan Younis, causing the death of 21 Israelis. Three more Israelis died that day fighting against Hamas’ Palestinian terrorists in central and southern Gaza.
While we somehow think the death of soldiers is normal in war, there is nothing normal about losing sons, brothers, fathers and husbands, mothers, sisters and wives in their teens, twenties, thirties, and forties. Over 220 Israeli soldiers, men and women, have died fighting against Hamas Palestinian terrorists since October 7th. Several hundred active duty and reserve soldiers were killed on October 7th itself, including those providing security and working in the police forces and as border guards.
Everyone in Israel has direct family members or relatives, friends, or certainly friends of friends who have died in the Gaza War. Israel is a small country, tight, community-based. Unlike the American military, nearly everyone in Israel serves in the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, and continues in a reserve role with the same unit for many years, doing milu’im, reserve duty annually for a month. Those dead men and women are close to so many people. The losses in this war will be felt for many years to come. Each death is personal. Everyone is impacted.
It is obvious here that there is ever-increasing pressure on the Israeli government to try to get the remaining hostages out. Over 130 people have been held for nearly four months now in brutal captivity by Hamas’ Palestinian terrorists in the tunnel network of Gaza, miles and miles of it, but negotiations to free the Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails during a cease fire have stalled. Hamas is insisting on a “permanent cease fire” that leaves the terrorists in control of Gaza. Israel has agreed to a one-month cease-fire and exchange of all hostages for prisoners, with humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza in a much larger way than it has arrived at until now. There is no apparent prospect of any deal soon.
Although Qatar and Egypt have led efforts to negotiate a deal, Hamas has remained intransigent. As you might expect from terrorists who realize that the moment the last Israeli hostage is freed what remains of the gloves will be off, and their leadership in Gaza will be targeted and liquidated. Israel has accused the absentee top terrorists of Hamas, who live in cushioned comfort in luxurious style in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, of using the Palestinian civilians of Gaza as brutalized pawns, putting them in the line of fire, forced migration, and disease, making them human shields are PR martyrs while they themselves enjoy the fruits of international aid funds in distant lands. These absentee Hamas lords of terror have refused to compromise to free the remaining hostages, preferring to see their own civilians destroyed. While Gaza burns they sit in the UAE and drink tea.
There are never easy answers in the Middle East, are there?
Meanwhile, it is extremely clear that the current leadership of Israel, definitely including Prime Minister Natanyahu, will face a day of reckoning for the horrible failures of October 7th. That day has not yet come, and may not come for a few more months. It is extremely hard for any nation to change leadership during a war. It will be particularly difficult for Israel to do so, and I don’t think it will until some decision is reached in this battle against terrorism.
The latest information on the Hamas tunnel network is daunting. It is now reckoned that it is as extensive as the London Underground system, and it is likely many tunnels are not yet discovered even after nearly four months of warfare. The latest reports make it clear that destroying it would be an engineering feat beyond the capability of the IDF, or perhaps any world military now. Only a fraction of the tunnels in the north of Gaza, under the full control of the IDF now, have been destroyed.
Israeli society has come together to support this war. But it will be a great challenge for it to continue to remain on the current path for much longer.
May God give Israeli leadership not only strength but wisdom, which is a rare and precious commodity in wartime and always hard to come by.