By Max Levin
LOS ANGELES — As I started cleaning my gun, shouts of “Hakpatzah! Hakpatzah!” came from one of the boys from Team 20 as he ran through the camp. This was what our commanders would yell during training when there was an emergency, but we’d been through over a year of training and had finished our most recent drill.
I felt paralyzed watching him run through camp. I looked over at Noah and Dover, and muttered, “I hope this isn’t for real.”
That’s when Paz exclaimed that it was the real deal. “Something’s happened. We need to respond. Immediately!”
The team and I went into a frenzy, everyone grabbing their bags, vests and, of course, guns. I sprinted back and forth, tossing equipment onto the green Egged bus. Soon, 18 of us were ready to go.
As we drove out from the base, I studied Paz, who was the only one with any information. He was getting it from the walkie talkie in his vest. Just then, he turned toward me, “Do you know the way to Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak?”
Of course, I knew! It’s where my friends and I used to go and party at their bar on Saturdays. I said, “That’s a five-minute drive from my own kibbutz, Nir Oz.”
Paz then announced to us that a group of Hamas terrorists had infiltrated Israel through a tunnel under the Gaza border. As far as he knew, this was the first time an incident like this had occurred. Our mission was to defend the kibbutz from a possible attack. I gazed out the window at the arid countryside, not a person in sight, the bus kicking up dust and the sun setting as we traveled into what would be an unknown situation. Right then, my stomach began to turn, the gravity of what could be was becoming clear to me: I was going to my neighbor’s kibbutz, a five-minute drive from my own, to defend friends and family.
As we patrolled, the earth shook from the persistent explosions. After eight hours, the sun rose, but we didn’t have any updates. I switched my night vision goggles for binoculars and continued searching for any suspicious movements outside of the kibbutz’s security fence. The mortars and rockets had slowed, but would it stay that way? Camouflaged, Matt, another American-Israeli soldier from my team, and I climbed on top of some hay bales for a better view. Still, no movement could be detected.
Once another four hours had gone by, Tamir returned from his patrol. He explained that Maglan, another Special Forces unit that was also charged with searching for terrorists, had found and captured the enemy a few miles north of us. The kibbutzim wanted us to stay put and continue guarding for the next couple of days, but we had to return to prepare for the war to come.
Once again, Israel recently found itself at war with Hamas. Once again, the young men and women of Israel, who are still so young, found themselves with the heaviest of responsibilities: defending their family and friends at home. As a former Israeli war veteran who was in the last Israeli-Gaza conflict in 2014, I understand the weight of this responsibility hanging on their shoulders. I understand what is going on inside their heads, what their last wishes will be, what they will say in their last words to their loved ones before putting their phones away in a sealed box, possibly never to be seen again.
For those on the ground, the possibility of actually entering Gaza, an indiscriminately small yet terrorizing area where booby traps and enemy combatants lie waiting with an intricate tunnel system, is petrifying. Such a system of tunnels means that even once an area has been checked and looks to be safe, you may find yourself going back to see the enemy lying in wait, ready to ambush you. Once in Gaza, every spot is now the front lines even after it has already been “cleared.” No place inside Gaza is truly safe. However, even facing such a terror, one truth remains.
The fact that their family, friends, and loved ones stand behind them — that is worth putting everything on the line to defend. Right now, Israel is fighting to defend what it loves, who it loves, and its people.
In light of recent events, thankfully there is a ceasefire. I am thankful these soldiers will not have to go into Gaza, once again.
As Golda Meir said, “If we have to choose between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.” Now that we have won the physical war, the mental and political one is the new priority.
In this reality, where the truth is determined by what is popular and whomever has the biggest following, the truth about Israel is getting harder and harder to defend. Fortunately, every Jewish person has a place to be safe, a place to escape anti-Semitism, a home to return to — and its name is Israel. During this time of crisis, it is their obligation to defend her, and defend their home by, at the very least, helping to spread the truth of what is going on. It saddens me to say that because there are so many lies out there, and the enemy — the enemy of Israel, of democracy, of the truth — is currently winning the war on the hearts and minds of the world, this will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the physical battle, when the next one occurs.
With this in mind, I hope people will take a minute to read my book Under the Stretcher and read a first person, American perspective, of what it is like living in Israel and serving in the IDF. I hope they will continue to spread truthful and nuanced information because the issue with the Middle East is, “the devil is in the details,” yet very few people take the time to read all the details to ask why things are happening and who is gaining from such devastation. In this last conflict, I can promise neither the Israeli nor Palestinian people gained anything, but someone definitely did.
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Max Levin grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to Los Angeles at 14. He made Aliyah and was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). During his service he joined the Special Forces Unit within the paratrooper’s division and fought and was wounded in Operation Protective Edge (2014). He received the equivalent of an Israeli Purple Heart from, at the time, IDF Chief of Staff Benjamin Gantz. Red Penguin Books recently published his first book, Under the Stretcher, which recounts his experiences in the IDF.