For Shin Shinim (young Israel emissaries) Yaniv Carmi and Dar Eitan, both 18, who started their voluntary pre-army service in Milwaukee last summer, it has been difficult to be away from home during the Gaza war.
Not only do they both have friends serving in the Israel Defense Forces, many of them in Gaza, but the majority of Eitan’s’s extended family is living in southern Israel, in Kiryat Gat, which has recently joined other southern Israeli towns as a target of Hamas’ expanding rocket attacks.
Though it had not yet been hit last week when The Chronicle spoke with Eitan by telephone, Kiryat Gat residents were experiencing “red alerts,” sirens warning of incoming rockets.
“It’s harder because I am far away. I should be with them. In times of war you want to go back to Israel. You want to be home and be with your people,” Eitan said.
Carmi agreed saying, “This is the time I need to be with my family and my friends.”
Carmi had received a text message the day before we spoke last week from a friend serving in Gaza. The friend had been sent home for a three-day leave and he assured Carmi that the three or four of their mutual friends he was serving with were alive and well. But Carmi believes that as many as 15 other friends may be in Gaza.
“[Eitan and I] both experienced war [with Lebanon] two summers ago,” Carmi said. “It’s so similar, but [the residents of southern Israel have been going through this for eight years. It’s amazing they still have this hope. And they know they have to stay there because otherwise no one will be there.”
Carmi said that his home in Israel is just four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) from the Syrian border and he can identify with the danger facing Israelis in the south near the Gaza border. “I cannot expect anyone to protect me if I am not willing to fight to protect them,” he said.
Besides being far from family and friends in difficult times, another challenge for them has been the news coverage of the conflict.
“It’s awkward because in Israel we always hear that the coverage is not equal, but this is the first time I experienced it,” Carmi said.
“The journalists are working for dramatic pictures. They are showing just good and bad. It’s like a fairy tale; this big, strong country is bombing these poor people. If you take one step back you see it’s much more complicated,” he said.
Both Carmi and Eitan said they are proud of their friends who are participating in Operation Cast Lead, but both also mentioned their sympathy and concern for innocents in Gaza who are being used as human shields by Hamas.
“I believe there are good people there who want peace, but Hamas does not want peace and that is the problem,” Carmi said.
The two will return to Israel in late August and in the fall they will enter the IDF. Both have already received their assignments. Carmi will train to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force and Eitan will lead male soldiers in basic training camp.
“I will force them to do push-ups and I will give them a new mindset in the IDF,” she said.
— Andrea Waxman
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