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Anglo Israeli woman helps identify victims of Hamas massacre for burial

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Anglo Israeli woman helps identify victims of Hamas massacre for burial



A week after the Swords of Iron war began, Avigail Gimpel found herself working back-to-back shifts, preparing victims’ bodies for burial, all because of a friendship. 

When her close friend Stella Frankl passed away eight years ago, Neveh Daniel resident Gimpel wanted to do something in her memory. 

“Stella had been a member of the chevra kadisha [Jewish burial society] in Maryland, and that really inspired me,” she told the Magazine.

One of the only women involved in identifying Israeli victims of terrorism

Gimpel joined the chevra kadisha of Gush Etzion but didn’t get called on too often. 

“I was very not active because there are so many women volunteers,” she said. In fact, in eight years, Gimpel had participated in exactly one tahara (ritual preparation of a Jewish body before burial).

THE OCT. 25 funeral of three members of the Sharabi family – Lian, Noya and Yahel – murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7 (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

That changed on October 14, when her husband, Daniel, who had been preparing the bodies of male victims and digging graves, asked her to help. The initial volunteers were all men, but after a few days, as more bodies were identified and released for preparation, the need for teams of women became relevant. This is because, by Jewish law, only women prepare female bodies for burial, and men prepare male bodies.  

The combination of her husband’s involvement and her experience with a single previous tahara was enough to qualify Gimpel. 

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“I have no medical background,” she noted. However, she said, “I knew that I could stomach being with a dead body.” She explained that those preparing the body must be “in very close contact [with the deceased] and I knew I wasn’t squeamish.” 

Gimpel is now one of just a handful of women in Israel trained to do this kind of heart-wrenching work with terror victims.

Zaka, Israel’s volunteer search and rescue organization, retrieved bodies from the kibbutzim near Gaza and the Supernova music festival site and brought them to a central location to be identified. Gimpel said that, in addition to DNA and dental records, a number of bodies were identified through what she termed “tattoo identification.” She clarified that Jewish law allows Jews to work on identifying bodies even on Shabbat. So a full week after the murderous rampage concluded, Israel’s forensic teams spent the entirety of the Shabbat of October 13-14 identifying bodies.

Once the bodies had been identified, they were brought to the chevra kadisha of Rishon Lezion to be prepared for burial. 

GIMPEL’S FIRST shift began Saturday night October 14 and lasted until 1 a.m. That night, there were four teams, two each of six women and six men.

 “I knew as I headed out [to start that shift], I would be a different person when I came home,” she said. 

Gimpel stated that this work came with “unique challenges because of the conditions of the bodies. No one has done this kind of work since the Yom Kippur War. All of us were learning on the job.

“I wasn’t scared,” she said. “I was in a space of prayer that I would be able to do this in the most respectful way for these people who were so brutally murdered. I can’t fully find the words to describe it. The brutality I saw was outrageous, [a result of] people trying to impose as much harm and suffering on our people as possible.

“The next day was Rosh Hodesh. I was trying to pull myself together when I got an emergency call.”  She had hardly slept and was in the middle of a [Zoom] meeting with a client in America at the time. 

“I was told, ‘There are more bodies. You have to come quickly.’”  

Her client encouraged her to end their meeting immediately and answer the emergency call. 

“Let me do this mitzvah. You go,” her client insisted. 

Gimpel quickly changed into clothes that could be tossed out at the end of her second shift and drove back to Rishon Lezion. “I had this fire inside of me. I wanted to keep going until every single body was buried. I raced out the door because I knew how much these families were suffering, and we had to get the job done.

“The second day was even more complicated,” she reported. “Only three women showed up for the team. The work was much more challenging. To do it quickly and respectfully really pushed us to our limits.”

It was the tiny remnants of life that made the deepest impression on Gimpel: the grandmother who had just gotten her nails polished a vibrant red; the young woman whose pocketbook containing her phone, her keys, and other personal effects was still attached; the little girl whose body was stopped in mid-motion. 

EIGHT DAYS later, Gimpel had participated in preparing 40 to 50 bodies of girls and women for burial. 

Then, “last Thursday, the whole endeavor came to a screeching halt because 20% of the bodies are unidentifiable. We’re distraught that we can’t finish this, that there are Jewish bodies that couldn’t be buried,” she confessed. “There were no more bodies to bury. That was the next massive tragedy because they couldn’t be identified. What more punishment could a family deal with?” she implored.

Reflecting on the frantic pace of the horrifyingly difficult task, Gimpel said: “What’s giving me a lot of strength is knowing that all these holy women who were killed al kiddush Hashem [because they were Jews] are sitting at God’s throne. 

“It’s not an accident that I was given the opportunity to spend their last few moments on this Earth with them.”

She spoke about the bond of sisterhood she felt with the other women she worked with and the positive impact of their ability to process the trauma as they were confronted by it. 

“The fact that we, as a group of women, were able to bring these bodies to burial, to send them back to their families, has given us strength,” she shared. 

Gimpel feels encouraged by having seen the Jewish people come together to help bring so many victims to burial in accordance with Jewish law.

“My only optimism comes from us being able to come together and work shoulder to shoulder. That’s our superpower. I felt the holiness. 

“If we can unleash that superpower, we can do whatever we need to get our land back and to have safety. We can do this on our own, if we can be unified,” she declared.

Since wrapping up frenetic activity, Gimpel reflected that “davening [praying] has been harder. I weep my way through the davening on Shabbos. My body lets go a little, and I am able to allow the emotions to flow through.”

Gimpel and her husband first came to Israel two days after their wedding in 1998. Though they intended to return to the US to complete their education, a pressing need for health insurance due to Avigail’s first pregnancy convinced the couple to pivot and make aliyah instead. 

Except for a few years spent in Moscow working in the family business, Avigail and Daniel have been in Israel ever since. All six of their children were born in Israel.

When not pressed into service during war, Gimpel is a best-selling author and has been working with those impacted by ADHD for over 25 years. Her oldest child is 24, and her youngest is 13. She has one son serving on the Gaza border. 

From her perspective as an eyewitness, Gimpel posted three powerful videos to social media. 

“After the first two to three days, I saw that we had Holocaust [era] denial from something that [had just] happened [the previous] weekend. People were denying the cruelty and the horrors of what [the victims] went through before they were murdered. 

“I needed to shout that [truth] out to the world [because] these women don’t have a voice. I wanted the world to know what they had suffered and that it was real and it was only because they were Jewish.

“I never expected to see evil so up close, and that has definitely changed me. I’m a Western, liberal New Yorker. We had this firm belief that, under the right conditions, everyone wants to be good. 

“Turns out, it’s just not true. We have to get that through our stubborn hard heads,” she concluded. 





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Inside the IDF’s strike on Iran’s Syrian missile factory: Shaldag’s high-stakes operation

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Inside the IDF’s strike on Iran’s Syrian missile factory: Shaldag’s high-stakes operation



While the IDF Shaldag special operation on September 8 against a uniquely threatening underground Iranian missile production facility near the city of Maysaf in Syria has been discussed many times recently, only on Thursday did the IDF reveal the play-by-play of the battle on the ground between Israeli and Syrian forces.

Shaldag is the special operations arm of the Air Force, so they are often the first option for operations in other countries, especially those using helicopters in complex landing areas.

At the outset, it should be noted that there were five Syrian underground tunnels to the facility, guarded by 11 different Syrian posts clumped together in three main positions, manned by around 30 Syrian troops.

Israeli aircraft, drones, and helicopters attacked the Syrian positions before four helicopters dropped off dozens of Shaldag special forces to move toward the facility on foot.

While Shaldag forces came from two different directions, the key component was dropped off around 700 meters from the main facility entrance, where the IDF had decided to penetrate the facility.

The initial attack by Israeli air power and initial IDF forces killed around 26 of the 30 Syrians, with four surviving.

Next, Shaldag forces moved in and killed the remaining four Syrian guards.

At least two of those killed were guarding the entrance to the base, and some Syrians were in jeeps or a motorcycle who tried to approach and assist.

Operation Heavy Roads, involving IDF special op. against Iranian missile production facility in Syria (credit: IDF)

The mix of a first strike to surprise the guards and quickly eliminate any remainder of the guards was critical to Israel’s exit strategy from Syria before large reinforcements would arrive, which could overwhelm even the relatively large Israeli forces on the ground.

It almost went badly

During the first approximately two-and-a-half hours of the operation, dozens of additional Syrian forces came to try to oust the IDF from the site. However, it took them time to arrive, and once they did, a mix of IDF airpower and portions of Shaldag forces holding a perimeter successfully prevented them from interfering with the operation. 


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However, IDF sources estimated that if the operation had gone on another hour or so, hundreds of Syrian forces, including those with greater firepower, were on the way and would have arrived and potentially been able to severely harm the Shaldag forces in play.

After the initial fighting, the Shaldag forces used unspecified classified means to break open the main doors of the facility, which were locked in a very complex way.

This process took some significant time, and carrying it out as fast as possible was another critical part of the mission planning to avoid the Shaldag forces being overtaken by large Syrian reinforcements.

Once the door was breached, another element of Shaldag forces with a mini-tractor, a variety of explosives, and specialized trained explosive experts entered the facility along with dozens of IDF forces.

There were three pathways to the key inner facilities, and the IDF took pathway three.

Inside and after traversing numerous corridors, there were three critical rooms with powerful weapons being built and four rooms for building rocket engines, along with many other logistics rooms and office space.

These rooms contained, among other things, facilities for building missiles and rockets such as the M-600, with a range of 250-300 kilometers; the M302, with a range of 130 kilometers; the M220, with a range of 70 kilometers; the M122, with a range 40 kilometers, a special cement mixer, and other items.

The IDF’s elite Shaldag Unit operates in the Gaza Strip (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

The Jerusalem Post witnessed video footage of the soldiers inserting a variety of special explosives in many of the weapon systems and building components within the facility.

Operatives involved in the operation told the Post that it was “incredible” and the most significant operation they had ever participated in, despite having participated in covert missions in many other places outside of Israel. They also thanked IDF intelligence for providing them with an accurate picture of what to expect inside the facility.

Along with the firepower of the explosives in the facility itself, the collective power of the explosion of the facility likely reached around a ton of explosives. 

The outcome was to prevent Iran, Hezbollah, and Iranian militias in Syria from manufacturing between 100 and 300 long-range, high-quality missiles per year near the border with Israel without the need to continue to smuggle them to the area from the faraway Islamic Republic. 

IDF sources said that the Shaldag has carried out around 800 operations during the war. These operations started in Gaza, including uncovering and destroying a major weapons manufacturing facility in central Gaza. However, their operations expanded around December 2023 to include Lebanon, such as an operation at Maroun a-Ras.

13 Shaldag fighters, including some high-level commanders, have been killed during the war.

About 50% of Shaldag is now reservists, and the special forces unit has grown significantly during the war.





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Pittsburgh man who wanted join Hezbollah ‘to kill Jews’ arrested

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Pittsburgh man who wanted join Hezbollah ‘to kill Jews’ arrested



An American-Irish citizen who traveled to Lebanon and Syria in an attempt to join the Hezbollah terrorist organization and fulfill his desire to kill Jews was arrested on Monday for making false statements to FBI agents, the Western District of Pennsylvania US Attorney’s Office announced. 

Jack Danaher Molloy, 24, had converted to Shia Islam in February and traveled to Lebanon in August. According to an affidavit, Molloy was in contact with several individuals who sought to help him with his quest to join the terrorist organization.

Molloy had difficulty in enlisting with Hezbollah because he didn’t know Arabic, and the terrorist organization wasn’t recruiting foreigners during the October 7 War with Israel in the wake of intelligence failures like the September pager bomb attacks. 

Molloy told an associate that he had been “told very politely that Hezb isn’t recruiting anymore” because “They can’t even trust Lebanese at this point” because of “too many security breaches.” 

Contact warned him that his attempts to join might “escalate” to the point of him being suspected of being a Mossad agent.

Image found on Jack Danaher Molloy’s devices by law enforcement. (credit: Western District of Pennsylvania US Attorney’s Office)

“There are a lot of divisions you can apply for, but right now, they are not recruiting, they’re not accepting anyone, and due to the high number of Mossad agents and moles, appearing inside, sadly, so it’s gonnatake a while,” one contact told Molloy. 

Molloy was also advised that boot camps and recruiting had been disrupted and that when the current “circumstances” were over, it would take three to four months before the group was organized enough to reopen to recruits. 

Beginning training at a ‘young age’ 

An associate explained that Hezbollah operatives started with the organization at a “very young age,” going on to train at several different locations before being asked if they wished to become official members in the Shiite group’s military force. Joining Foreign brigades was difficult, requiring current members to vouch for him.

On October 9 Molloy went to Syria to join Hezbollah or another militia, but was told that the dynamics between armed groups in Syria made it “not very ethical” to join some Syrian resistance factions “due to the things that happened in Syria.”

Around this time, he told his mother that he was considering joining the Russian forces fighting against Ukraine in order to earn money, but he answered in the affirmative when his mother asked if his “master plan” was ” to join Hezbollah and kill Jews.”


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On October 14, Molloy left Syria to return to the United States, assured by contacts that he would likely be able to join Hezbollah next year. Molloy landed at Pittsburgh International Airport on October 20, where he was questioned by FBI agents and lied about his intentions to join a US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Molloy told an associate that he had enrolled with the Iran-based online Al-Mustafa Open University, knowing its connection to Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the affidavit, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the university in 2020 because its branches facilitate IRGC Quds Force recruitment of international students.

Molloy, who had previously joined the American Reserve Officers’ Training Corps for two months, believed that his Irish background informed his hatred of Zionists and respect for Hezbollah. 

The Irish and Hezbollah?

In October, he posted on X that “We Irish love Hezbollah, and personally, they were a major influence in me reverting to Islam and moving to Lebanon.”

“To me, I am continuing the fight my great-grandmother fought against the Zionists, but now Islamically,” he said to someone using Google Translate. “I have a very fierce hatred of these Zionists, and I need to fight…I have thought about this every moment of every day since I was 18, for 7 years now.”

Molloy’s computer and phone contained violent jihadist and Nazi images, including some depicting the execution of Jewish stereotypes. In one image, a character marked with a Nazi swastika shot a Jewish stereotype cartoon, and a similar representation of a Jew on his knees with a red inverted triangle above his head was shot execution-style in the back of his head.

One image on Molloy’s device depicted a Nazi SS soldier and a Jihadi with the slogan “one struggle” in English and Arabic. Another picture displayed Hezbollah fighters performing a Roman salute with the fusion of a Nazi and Lebanese flag in the backdrop. On the anniversary of October 7, Molloy created an email account called “k**ekiller696969” and, in 2019, used the address “glassofjuice88.” The latter phrase is a homophone for “Gas the Jews,” and the number “88” is a reference to a neo-Nazi numerical code for “Heil Hitler.”

The US Attorney’s Office said that Molloy faces the possibility of both a sentence of up to eight years in prison or a $250,000 fine.





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An IDF reservist’s top ten takeaways after returning from Gaza

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An IDF reservist’s top ten takeaways after returning from Gaza



On Sunday, I returned to The Jerusalem Post after being drafted as an IDF reservist for almost 80 days for my second tour of duty in Gaza since the October 7 Massacre. My anecdotal experience as an infantryman and perspective as a journalist in civilian life has given me a unique perspective on Gaza war issues, familiar and unexplored alike. These ten takeaways from someone who has been in the mud of the battlefield should be considered by policymakers and citizens in which much of the information about the war is second-hand information and hearsay.

1. The IDF is winning, and needs to be allowed to win

Compared to their operations during my first tour at the end of 2023, a sense that Hamas is collapsing has since developed. The terrorist organization once fielded ambush cells that conducted frequent hit-and-run anti-tank missile attacks and ambushes from a wide network of bunkers and tunnels for a guerilla defense in depth strategy.

Almost a year later, Hamas seems unable to operate on a strategic level, even from areas in which its battalions have remained structurally intact or reconstituted from degraded units. This is exemplified by Hamas’ inability to launch targeted reprisals for the death of military leaders, or even attempt traditional attacks on Jewish holidays or the anniversaries of October 7.

By and large, they do not operate at night or the light of day, clinging even closer to the low visibility of dawn and dusk, whereas their operatives would once more openly operate in daylight hours due to being able to escape underground after an attack. It appears that their tunnel networks have been greatly compromised, as they have had to travel along roads and weave between buildings.

Their legitimate operations focus on IED and lone sniper attacks rather than using heavier munitions, but a greater focus has been filming any engagement so that they can edit the footage so they can claim to foreign supporters and Israeli citizens that they have destroyed Israeli vehicles. Stealing humanitarian aid has apparently not been enough for some Hamas battalions, as in one case they have resorted to sending plainclothes operatives to loot food and supplies from abandoned IDF positions. Their mortar bombs fall far less accurate than they once were, and we did not encounter any enemy drone activity.

The Netzarim security corridor seems relatively safe, with paved roads, and outposts enjoying electricity provided by power lines. While many soldiers left Gaza positive about the IDF’s advancements, the path of victory is long and the journey should not be confused with its destination. Many soldiers have mixed their sense of Hamas’s significant degradation with the feeling that the military is being held back from decisive action, entering and leaving areas to allow Hamas to retain territorial control.

Michael Starr serving in Gaza in 2024. (credit: Courtesy)

2. Gaza has suffered heavy damage

The extent of the damage to infrastructure hasn’t been completely appreciated by the general public, and Israeli and international leaders will need to develop extensive plans to rebuild the territory. Whole neighborhoods have been leveled during direct combat, the search and destruction of tunnels and booby traps, and the establishment of defensible positions.

If buildings have not been damaged by their proximity to explosives or pocked by suppressive fire, they have had their outer walls shaved away to reveal the possible presence of terrorists. Concrete rubble and trash are strewn along wide fields in the Gaza Strip and will need to be collected and moved before some areas are traversable, let alone livable. The IDF Spokespeople will also need to prepare to explain the extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.

3. Gaza was far from an ‘open-air prison’

One of the great shames about the extensive damage to Gazan infrastructure is that it was not the desolate “open-air prison” that it had been advertised as in anti-Israel propaganda.

While there certainly were residents living in desperate conditions, the houses, apartments, and villas that we cleared and took position had a decent and even opulent quality of life. All the homes we saw had televisions, computers, refrigerators, decorations, and food stores in line with an Israeli suburb. Our impression was not one of squalor, but normal conditions.


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In rural areas villas and mansions oversaw sweeping vineyards on one side and a view of the ocean on the other, and in urban areas large schools, restaurants and other facilities. The lost potential and degraded conditions in Gaza make Hamas’s decision to attack Israel and weaponize their territory rather than develop what they held a shame all the greater.

4. Hamas weaponized Gaza

Much has been said about Hamas’s use of civilians as shields to deter IDF operations — A detained civilian told our troops that he was unable to travel from the North to South along humanitarian corridors because he had to bribe Hamas operatives who were bent on keeping civilians around them as cover. Yet the civilians are just one aspect of Hamas turning Gaza into a weapon to try to destroy Israel.

Tunnel networks are not just placed around or under civilian objects, terrorist infrastructure is integrated into civilian infrastructure in a way that makes the two indistinguishable. Civilian homes are turned into lookout and reconnaissance outposts, with members of families hired by terrorist organizations to provide intelligence, as was exemplified by the capture of spotters captured by a neighboring battalion. Armories are hidden within houses, to be accessed by plainclothes terrorists when they have the need to shed the veneer of being civilians.

Tunnel entrances can be found in the first floor of apartment buildings, not just in their backyards. Other homes are booby-trapped, leading to widespread suspicion of each home as being laced with explosives. With Gaza being weaponized in such a fashion, it has led military units to take precautions and actions that damage buildings and homes so that they can stay alive.

5. The IDF is not conducting a genocide

The purpose of our operations were not geared toward the elimination of Gazan civilians. There were never orders to kill civilians wantonly, and there were debates on if we had enough information to use deadly force and when it was legitimate to open fire. Civilians were allowed to pass by our positions along humanitarian corridors unmolested. These elements would not be found among a force that is devoted to mass murder or genocide. Civilian casualties are tragic, and unfortunately, they always occur in war, which is why such conflict should be avoided in the first place.

6. The IDF needs to restore discipline

While IDF soldiers are not engaged in mass war crimes or genocide, there is inappropriate and even criminal behavior. Other soldiers have shared with me stories of when they have seen looting, and I had to stop someone who had been temporarily attached to our battalion from taking a necklace from a house. While my battalion did not bring our cellphones into Gaza until our last week, when we were moved back to a rearguard outpost, we have seen the widespread use of phones by other neighboring units.

This is all the more shocking not just because posting on social media can be used by enemies to geo-locate positions and gather intelligence, but the violent machismo and inappropriate fooling around in videos and photographs discredits the moral legitimacy of the military and creates an overly relaxed and familiar environment that can get people killed. While journalists have to answer to the IDF censor, it felt to many of us that the IDF has done little to crack down on soldiers who are acting as poor spokespeople and even documenting what appear to be crimes.

Even small issues such as unsanctioned edgy uniform patches lead to a breakdown in discipline, which may lead to even greater behavior unbecoming of the IDF’s ethics. IDF leadership seems unwilling to want to deal with the overly involved families and loss of manpower that comes with disciplining inappropriate behavior.

7. Trust has been eroded in military leadership

The failures of the October 7 Massacre have led to a distrust of military brass among many soldiers and reservists that I have spoken to. It has become a common refrain among the ranks to not trust anyone above the rank of a battalion commander.

High-ranking officers are viewed critically as out-of-touch “October 6” officers who care more about the advancement of their careers through checking task boxes on their clipboards rather than actually changing the reality on the ground.

Reservists and mandatory soldiers alike are results-oriented, and if they feel that officers are more focused on satisfying their superiors rather than the realities on the ground, their orders will have less validity. Military brass, like the political leadership, need to prove to their men that their sacrifices for victory will not be in vain.

8. Reservists are frustrated with domestic squabbles

As news broke that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, fierce debate broke out in the company about the legitimacy of the move. While Netanyahu’s camp claimed that there were professional differences over strategy that could not be overcome, and that the prosecution of the war required Gallant’s firing, too much suspicion and bad blood had been developed about political plays within the current government.

Many believe that the move was done to save the coalition because ultra-orthodox parties threatened to leave because of Gallant’s work towards drafting haredi youth. Such suspicions have been informed by some politicians continuing to pursue their prior political interests, such as major judicial reform proponents calling to renew the process.

While Israeli soldiers are fighting and dying, they don’t feel that politicians are with them and take the war seriously. This distrust extends to the opposition as well — with many of the same actors that were involved in the anti-reform camp pushing for hostage deals at varying cost, many soldiers have expressed to me that they can’t help to wonder if they are motivated by the good of the nation or their own political agendas.

9. The IDF needs more soldiers

As the war and debate about who has drafted has continued, reservists have become increasingly frustrated that some demographic groups are benefitting from the blood and toil of reservists while not contributing to the endeavor themselves. My battalion deputy commander and company commander have become involved in movements calling for a more equal draft.

The need for an increased draft comes as current reservists face multiple tours and are pushed off retirement. Our battalion saw a drop off in reenlistment as some reservists had to deal with crumbling families, businesses, and health. Many reservists came despite these challenges — the sacrifices that they have made are beyond just the risk of death and injury.

10. Soldiers deserve victory

The sacrifices that were made by reservists and mandatory soldiers were made under the implicit promise that they would be in exchange for victory. The state has to consider in its policies and strategic decisions not just the feelings of hostage families and residents who have to return home but also those who have willingly given everything for them and the state.

Reservists want resolution to the problems that led to October 7, they don’t want this war to become yet another round in ongoing conflict. While we will continue to fight for Israel, we don’t want to have to come back to Gaza and Lebanon in a few years time — for not just our sake, but also for that of all Israelis and Palestinians. 





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