'SUDDENLY I REALIZE THAT I'M BURNING': ISRAELIS WHO FOUGHT IN GAZA SHARE WHAT THEY SAW

'Suddenly I Realize That I'm Burning': Israelis Who Fought in Gaza Share What They Saw

The monologues of eight Israeli troops who returned from the Gaza battlefield

May 04th, 00AM May 04th, 00AM

'Suddenly I realize that I'm burning'

Or Szneiberg, 24, from Jerusalem, counselor in a pre-army preparatory course, Armored Corps officer

October 7. "On that Saturday, I saw a video of a tank I recognized going up in flames. It was the tank of Omer Neutra, who it later turned out had been abducted to Gaza. I realized that close friends and people who had been my soldiers until not long ago were fighting there now. I called one of them and you could hear shooting in the background. The names you hear that "have been cleared for publication" [the media phrase to announce the names of soldiers killed in action], are those of people I'm on close terms with. I knew I had to get to the south. The closer I got to the area of Re'im [location of the Nova party], the more I noticed the smell. To this day, that's what comes back to me: a fusion of the smell of a dead cat, scorched hair and burnt plastic. The sights were also something I never thought I'd see. Like an animal that was run over multiple times and became part of the road, just like that, only human beings."

Searching among the bodies. "I needed a [protective] vest and a helmet, because I had crummy reservists' equipment. Items of dead soldiers, soaked with blood and covered with flies, were scattered along the roads. I went through them one by one, looking for the least blood-stained vest. I found one of a Golani Brigade fighter who had been killed. I couldn't bring myself to wear a dead soldier's helmet, so I let that go. The vest stayed on me until I was wounded."

A harsh slap. "In the preparations for the ground entry into Gaza, we were so tired that we slept through even the noise of intense shooting, amid flashes of light. We knew it was dangerous, but it's too hot to sleep in the tank, and we didn't have the strength to run for cover. The ground entry into Gaza made us all euphoric. After we had felt defeated on October 7, suddenly everything worked like it should. Until the battalion's first incident, which happened less than a week after entry. An explosive device was attached to one of the tanks while an antitank missile was fired at it. An officer I know well was killed in the incident. A moment earlier, we had been smoking together, and suddenly I see his body. It was a slap to the whole battalion.

Like the Middle Ages. "In the humanitarian corridor from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, what's known as the 'drain,' there was a line of thousands, like for an outdoor concert. They came on donkeys and carts. I remember one cart being pulled by a boy, with two adults lying in it. It felt like the Middle Ages. Destruction all around. The road itself was no longer asphalt, but sand and glass. Some of the kids were barefoot. They were all holding a white flag in one hand and pressing an ID card against their forehead with the other. I'm considered a humanist leftist, but until that moment I also wanted revenge. Now I'm looking at barefoot little girls running on glass that we had broken. I understand that the only difference between them and girls in Ramat Gan is that these were born here and those were born there. Later that day, I speak with a fighter from another squad, a religious-Zionist guy who lives in a settlement and voted for Ben-Gvir. I tell him that it's sad to see the girls, and he replies, 'Brutally sad. But the only thing to do is come in and settle Gaza, and if necessary they'll die as part of the war.' I didn't get it. I say to him, you just said it's sad for you, that it touches you. 'True, it touches me, but I simply choose not to look.' I understood that he's a great guy, that we both have feelings, only he chooses to look away and I choose to see."

Monkeys and chickens. "In a few spots, we saw monkeys that had escaped from a zoo that was destroyed. We also saw an abandoned chicken coop, where the chickens had died from hunger and thirst. It was a sanitation hazard with a strong smell. So we buried them with a D9 bulldozer. We saw lots of animals, but hardly any enemy. At least not in northern Gaza. In Khan Yunis, a bit further south, where the army hadn't been so destructive, I thought it seemed really nice, but then I grasped very quickly that we were in a whole different dimension. We're not sleeping, every day we have wounded. What the media calls 'intensive battles.'"

Intense battles. "In one operation, soldiers reported finding 12 children and three women in a building where they were searching for a tunnel shaft. They continued searching and spotted a plaster wall. When they broke through that, they found four men and a boy of 14 on the other side. It looked like they had been there a long time. They had IDF equipment and turned out to belong to a Hamas intelligence unit. We were tasked with bringing an interrogator who was nearby with a different force. I get to him, and as I open the back door of the tank to let him in, I see a man running toward us with an RPG. I have no way to respond, because the turret is turned toward the other side and I'm unarmed. It felt like a bad dream; there's a threat and nothing can be done. I see him suddenly fall. Someone in the force there shot him. After him, three more armed men arrived, but they fell before they could shoot."

Swallowing a knife. Three days later, we're traveling in a convoy, laughing in the tank, and communicating with neighboring tanks. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I feel a blast to the side of the tank. I can't even finish the question, 'What happened?' and a crazy fire flares up inside. We'd shut the hatches to avoid snipers, and I can't breathe. I feeling like I'm swallowing a knife. I can't open my eyes. I feel like a sausage on a grill whose skin has wrinkled and torn. I realize that I'm burning and have to get out, but I need to press both fuses at the same time to open the hatch. I know the chance that the left opening will work at this moment isn't high, and that if I'll have to open the hatch with a manual device we'll all die. I try the fuses with eyes closed, trying and trying, and it's not working. I force my eyes open, see the fuses there, press harder and it opens. Just as I get half my body outside, an ammunition case in the tank explodes."

Tank driving above me. "The whole tank is burning, so I think everyone is dead. I'm in the middle of Khan Yunis. There are terrorists in the area. The thought that I'd rather be shot or abducted than burn in the tank goes through my mind. I jump down to the ground, and the tank suddenly starts moving in my direction. Turns out the driver hadn't lost consciousness; he also thought everyone was dead. He stuck his head out of the opening and hit the gas in order to beat it out of there. I'm lying on the ground. I gather that the tank is about to drive over me with the left tread. But I don't have time to stand up, so I roll myself to a spot where the center of the tank will pass by in a moment. The tank gives me a blow to the head, I go on lying there while it passes over me and goes on its way. I'm unarmed, wounded, black with soot. My fingers are burnt, and all my flesh is exposed. I'm a guy who faints during a blood test, but now it doesn't affect me, and I use my fingers to help me stand up. Nothing is hurting, and I start to run in the direction of the battalion."

Wanting to shoot me. "I run, run, run. Afterward, I was told that the commander who was in a Namer APC behind me saw me running, reported seeing a terrorist and requested permission to shoot me. The convoy commander denied permission because there were more forces there, and he was afraid of a friendly-fire incident. I keep running and see a Golani unit – they're aiming their rifles at me, I'm signaling to them that I'm a soldier. They realize I'm IDF, thanks to the helmet. They start to patch me up. I tell them that my crew burned. The next thing I remember is a 20-year-old female paramedic who's calmly tending to me, then my evacuation, with someone else from my tank lying next to me, but I can't make out who it is. I know he's one of the three, but I can't figure out who. Secretions are oozing from him and he's totally black. Even the whites of his eyes are black."

The buddies in the tank. "One of the crew members is still in intensive care. He's waiting for a lung transplant, because his lungs were burned so badly. He's married, with a little girl. Another buddy is in a rehab ward. Both he and the third buddy are currently undergoing a succession of plastic surgery procedures, because they were in the fire for a few minutes, whereas I managed to get out within seconds."

Encounter in a helicopter. "On the way to the helicopter, I feel excruciating pain for the first time. Inside the helicopter, I see one of the tank crew lying on a stretcher next to me. He smiles at me and his teeth are the only white thing in his whole body. He gives the V sign with two fingers. I respond in kind, and that's all I remember from the evacuation, because then we were given something to relieve the pain."

Everything is fine. "At the hospital entrance, I'm on a bed and they're running with me. I feel someone covering my head completely. I feel blurry from the drugs and I'm sure they think I'm dead, so I remove the covering to let them see that I'm alive. They cover me again and one of the staff says: 'Trust me, I'm sparing you embarrassing photos. There's lots of media here.' Only when the casualties officer asks me if my father is named Gustavo do I realize that in another minute my parents will know what happened. I felt that I'd let them down, because I'd told them not to worry. I'm completely naked, with plenty of medical personnel all around me, but it's not embarrassing. I just want them to treat me. A doctor eventually comes in and asks me to call my father to tell him that I've been wounded and am at Soroka. I tell him I can't do it, that he should speak to him, but he refuses. 'You're conscious, we need him to hear your voice. Just tell him that you're lightly wounded in Soroka and that everything is fine.' I asked the doctor whether I really had suffered only minor injuries, and he just replied, 'Everything is fine.'"

Back to being a Nazi. "I had multisystemic injuries, I was hospitalized for a month and a half. I'm very active politically on the left side of the map, so I'm mainly used to getting verbal abuse. In the hospital, 'hilltop youth' came to cheer up the wounded and spoke to me with respect. The unity everyone is talking about was at its height when I was wounded. But from the moment I was discharged and returned to the demonstrations, the attitude changed 180 degrees. These days I'm getting threats on my life again. I'm being called a Nazi and 'a terrorist who's worse than Hamas.' The same people who a moment before said, 'Well done,' are now threatening to break my bones. As I see it, the fighting in Gaza and the struggle for democracy stem from the same patriotic muscle – that's what I fought for the country's security with; this is what I use to fight for the country's future. One was an emergency order, so is the other."

'You tell yourself that now it's up to you'

Or Shadmi, 25, from Tel Aviv, student of philosophy, economics and political science, combat paramedic

Highway to hell. "I got a call from the unit when I was on the beach in a remote town in Albania. 'Come to the Envelope (referring to the Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip) as fast as you can,' he said. In the turmoil of emotions I forgot to say that I was in Albania. I just said I'm on the way. I started hitchhiking and organizing a flight along the way. I got to Israel at night, and from the airport I went to collect a weapon from the base. On the way south, Highway 232 told me the story: burnt cars, bodies everywhere. I feel the car jump when I run over everything along the way, probably bodies. I don't have my head straight about anything when the war begins. What comes back to me in dreams is the highway to hell, the real thing."

Sight of the bodies. "In Be'eri we fought for two and a half days. It was there that I understood that the reality of life in Israel will never be the same. We were all wiped out after the fighting in the kibbutz. What we saw there will not leave us. As a paramedic, I'd adopted ways over time to cope with graphic sights, but nothing prepares you for this. I remember guys there from the paratroopers who were totally in shock and never stopped looking at the bodies, so I saw to it that they were covered."

Fighting demons. "When we entered Gaza, I couldn't understand what I was supposed to feel. Should I be afraid? Because nothing could be worse than Be'eri. At first, we were mainly in northern Gaza, where the air force's bombing had destroyed everything and we didn't encounter any civilians. There's also no visible enemy, like you're fighting against demons. People who were in clashes said, 'A building shot at me,' or 'The ruins shelled me.' We didn't see anybody. It's the opposite of what there was in the Envelope, where people fought terrorists gun to gun."

Unrelenting gazes. "In central Gaza, along the humanitarian corridor, I saw families going via the drain, the gate that the army erected for people going south. I ask myself why they deserve this, and then I remember October 7. There's the story about Winnie the Pooh, when Christopher Robin goes down the stairs with him and he gets a bump on every stair; and then Pooh says that if Christopher Robin would have thought about it for a minute, he would certainly have discovered that there's another way to do it. I said to myself that for sure there's another way, but what? One thing is certain: to do it differently, any peace deal will also have to address Gaza's education system. I remember the tired and apathetic looks of the people who wandered south. Those gazes have stayed with me. The face of one girl who passed by there, who looked a lot more mature than she should have, doesn't let go of me."

All the dissonance in the world. "War has a variety of moments. I saw guys from elite units speaking with Palestinian children and calming the women. Those moments are fraught with all the dissonance in the world. I remember especially one night when we came back with Hummers and a large group of Palestinians were still moving southward. The commander stopped the Hummers and said that if soldiers saw shadows in the dark, it would end badly. We tried to figure out what to do, and in the end we radioed other forces to take them out of the line of fire."

Clash. "We're driving in three Hummers in central Gaza, and by chance the two others pass mine. The Hummer in front of us suddenly blows up from an explosive device. Sounds of gunfire are heard from every direction. We've encountered an ambush. You check that you're in one piece and you tell yourself that if you've got through this moment, from now on it's up to you. I request a helicopter, because there are at least three wounded, and in the midst of everything we're engaged in combat. There's shooting, but I have to get to the wounded. For that, I need someone to run with me to where the firing is. One of the fighters volunteers to join me. We run to them. I have very little time to make decisions. I examine the first and signal the fighters behind that he's dead. I examine the second and signal that he's dead, too. I examine the third and see a serious head wound, but I can do something about it. I give him preliminary care and transfer him to evacuation and from there to a helicopter. After he's flown out, I go over to the two dead and perform what had already become my custom when parting – close their eyes and say to each of them, 'Thank you.'"

Preventing trauma. "I am first a fighter and then a paramedic. In my view, this task isn't just the physical care. I always look for the soldiers with the glazed eyes, those in shock. I grab them and say, 'Listen, such and such happened. We got into a clash. Now we have to do such and such." I give them a big hug, with the same embrace and smile as if it had nothing to do with everything that's going on all around, and then reconnect them to the situation. It works like magic. I realized long ago that part of my task as a combat paramedic is to allow people many more good years in which they don't wet the bed at night."

Prayer. "My grandfather, who was an army man, told me once that anyone who doesn't dream about peace has no right to make war. In the first days in Be'eri, I wanted to really lay into them, but afterward I took a deep breath and thought that this isn't the person I want to be. Our people who were killed also weren't like that. I know goodhearted people who fell, people with grace, people who did good in the world. If only their death will be a prayer for peace."

Love. "Since I got home, harsh feelings have arisen. For example, that the world went on while my life stopped on October 7. The first time I came back to the apartment, I discovered that one roommate had left and another woman had replaced her. The person who left had taken the television in the living room. The moment I saw that, no matter that it was 9 P.M., I went out and bought the most expensive TV, and installed it that very night where the previous one had been. And I don't even watch television. It was a fantastically dumb action, which was due only to my desire for things to return to being exactly as they had been. Meeting with my mother was also difficult – I felt I was a tough version of myself. I didn't want the family to see me like that. But in the end, the war is at a standstill and is making us understand what is truly important. I'm less bothered now about the job I'll get after I finish school, but it's important for me to love."

'I cry more since the war'

Amir Schmid, 40, from Modi'in, middle school teacher, infantry fighter

To return to Kfar Azza. "In the first two days in Gaza, we slept in sand embankments, like World War I trenches, until we cleared houses and could sleep in them. My company didn't encounter terrorists. Every so often we were fired at, but from a distance. We did see a lot of weapons that Hamas abandoned. In my view, the most difficult moments of the war were in [Kibbutz] Kfar Azza – burnt cars punctured by bullets, with bodies inside, a truck filled with bodies wrapped in nylon. Since completing reserve duty, I've been going back to Kfar Azza as a volunteer to clean homes. It's helping me create closure."

Destruction in every corner. "When you enter houses to search for matériel, you turn cupboards inside out and remove all the clothes. You break beds, destroy walls. That was hard for me. War is horrible. Every time you enter a house, grenades are fired, or a shell, or the bulldozer knocks down a wall. You don't go in through the door, first of all you destroy. And if it's a terrorist's home, the whole thing is razed. There's masses of destruction, masses. It was hard for me to enter the children's rooms, but the more you do it, the more indifferent you become. My volunteer work in cleaning homes in Kfar Azza is a tikkun [correction] for that."

Girl with Kalashnikov. "I think the people in Gaza are miserable, no question about it. The more miserable you are, the more dangerous you are. In searching for intelligence materials, we saw a lot of textbooks explaining to children why this whole country is theirs. I was momentarily surprised, but then I thought that I teach my students similar things, only I emphasize that there are other peoples here. I saw in one house a picture of a little boy with a pistol and a teenage girl with a Kalashnikov. I thought a lot about that, too, because in Israel you might also see a picture of a boy and a girl holding firearms in Gadna, the youth paramilitary course. At the end of the day, we are in a war for the same territory, so I'm not optimistic about the future."

Moments of breaking down. "In Khan Yunis, I got a letter from my children, with 46 reasons why I should be with them now at home. At that moment, I broke down. People have all kinds of breakdown moments. We came across a lot of animals – sheep, geese, chickens, dogs, cats – and adopted some of them. One of our guys got attached to a dog, but when it started climbing on the mattresses and endanger us, the commander ordered him to get rid of it. The guy freaked out, left the company and didn't fight together with us anymore."

Sensitive senses. "When we're in the homes, they have to be blacked out completely. Most of the time you wander around in almost total dark, falling and running into things. At first it was an adventure, but I couldn't stand it any longer after three days. The noise is also hard to get used to. The whole time explosions, shooting, mortars, bullets – nonstop noise. At first I tried to figure out whether it was firing by us or by them, if it was standard munitions or not. I decided at some point that instead of going nuts, I would simply decide that it was nonstandard shooting, and that way I'd be protected. It didn't work. In talks we had after leaving Gaza to process the experience, a lot of my buddies said every little noise frightened them."

Everyone has athlete's foot. "I didn't shower for two months, other than on three home furloughs. I cleaned myself with wet wipes every other day. We always wore ceramic vests; we also slept in them at night. Everyone developed their own way of sleeping in the vest – I would open it and lie on my stomach to protect my back. I still feel tingling in my feet. The doctor said it's because of the vest. The helmet was also on the head most of the time. I didn't take it off at first because I'd promised my father, but you learn gradually where it's possible to take it off for a few minutes. Toward the end, there were guys who manned the position without a helmet because they couldn't bear it anymore. You never remove footwear. The first time I took off shoes, except for changing socks, was when I went home. Everyone got athlete's foot because of that."

Volunteering for action. "One of the difficult things is when we have to leave the house for a raid, and some stay and some go. They usually ask who wants to go or stay. I was torn between the desire to volunteer and put myself at risk, and the desire to stay and then put my buddies at risk. How do you decide? Every time you need to make that decision anew. Sometimes I went, and sometimes I stayed."

How many you killed. "I try to educate my students not to hate, but it's getting harder. The students say, 'We have to kill all the Arabs.' I used to tell them that the Nazis talked like that. Now I just explain that that's impossible, because we are dependent on the international community and can't just do as we please. They ask how many 'kills' I had, how many terrorists I killed. The truth is that I didn't kill a single one, and I'm glad for that. Why do I need to kill someone? I see my father, who fought in the Yom Kippur War and in Lebanon, and killed Egyptian and Syrian soldiers, and how much that held him back in life. I can talk about the wars. He can't."

Becoming a weeper. "I cry more since the war. I was always a man who's capable of crying, but now I am a real weeper. I am an actor in a amateur drama group, so I'm working now on a monologue of a soldier suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder who returns home from reserve duty. He wants to make up for the time he was sexually deprived of his wife, but she tells him she needs to get used to him again. I see that it's hard for my wife now. She says I haven't really returned, that I'm not fully present."

Embarrassment in class. "On the first day I was back in school after reserve duty, I was given an over-the-top reception. The whole school waited outside the classroom, sang songs, threw confetti. It was so embarrassing for me. You know, people keep saying we are heroes, but I feel it was a great privilege to take part in the war. It was very hard for me when we were about to leave Gaza, because the war wasn't over. We got the whole platoon to sign a letter that we wanted to stay and continue serving. It didn't help. We were discharged. When I went into Gaza, I told my wife I'd leave only when she said she would be ready to live in Be'eri. She's still not ready."

'Shock, raging emotions, wanting to throw up'

Mor Sheleg, 27, from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, psychology student, operations officer

Suddenly our forces firing. "I started the war with Golani [the brigade], but later I was asked to join a battalion outside the brigade, which had suffered a number of mass-casualty incidents. I am part of the team that supports the battalion commander. We analyze the enemy, highlight the risks. In one battle, I suddenly realized that a tank from a neighboring brigade had entered our sector, and then we hear on the wireless the battalion commander ask, 'Who fired a shell at the battalion commander's house?' A tank shell could come only from our forces, so it was immediately clear that it was friendly fire. We see on the computer the tank aiming at the battalion commander's house, and we immediately radio the neighboring brigade: 'Cease-fire, cease-fire! You're shooting at us!' Two of our soldiers were killed. Friendly fire is the worst thing there is – harder than any battle."

Falling apart mentally. "We handle the evacuation of the wounded while a battle with terrorists is waged in the background. We try to understand how to regulate our efforts so that we will do it efficiently and also be attentive to the fighting that's being conducted in parallel. The enemy is adept at exploiting chaotic situations. I operate coolly and constantly tell myself that I don't believe we killed ourselves. For a moment I felt a crack starting to form inside me, but I collected myself. It was also clear that there were some who would fall apart mentally and that we would need to see whether we would bring in a mental health officer to take them. At a certain stage the battalion commander said: 'That's it, we've concluded the incident. We're in a war and we're moving forward. We have missions. We'll address all the rest in the evening.' There are guys in this company who are being treated for PTSD. They've gone through quite a bit."

Trembling in the legs. "One soldier on guard heard an exhaust backfire and was certain a battle was going on. He called the police, started searching for the wounded. He experienced the whole thing in his head. He seemed confused, disconnected. He looked to the sides. At one point he asked to go outside and be alone. Then they called me and said he wanted me to be with him. I see him sitting, hunched over, withdrawn and trembling, behind a container. I sit down next to him, take his hand and say, 'I'm with you. Come on, let's breathe together.' I hold his trembling legs, get him grounded and say, 'The incident is over, we're alright.' After some time being silent together, he raises his head and says, 'Thank you, that's what I needed.'"

Shock on Highway 232. "I won't forget my first trip from reserve duty to my parents, on Highway 232. Today everyone knows that highway as the bloody route of the southern kibbutzim, but before October 7, it was my home, the only highway in the area of the Eshkol Regional Council. Driving on it, I see the familiar signs for Be'eri, Re'im, Magen. The highway has been wrecked by tanks, parts of cars are strewn by the roadside, burnt trees. I'm in shock, followed by emotional turmoil and a powerful urge to throw up."

Unforgettable visit. "The first time I went on furlough for a short break in Tel Aviv, after a lengthy stint in reserve duty, I took a walk in the city. I'll never forget it. Tel Aviv is a city that forgets fast, returns quickly to routine. I don't feel I belong. I feel alienated. I thought to myself that I'm in Gaza, fighting together with my battalion, and they're doing their thing. I normally like the life in Tel Aviv. I like sitting in cafés, but at that moment the contrast was too much to bear."

Overly drastic changes. "In all the home furloughs, the transition between the worlds was tough. Things shifted from zero to a hundred in seconds. Even now, a month after my discharge, it confronts me in every aspect of my life. In general, the reserves really strengthen us. We feel we have a mission. We're focused on the task. The government, for example, doesn't interest us. I am defending the citizens of Israel. At home they were dealing with a civilian reality, and I felt that everyone was falling apart there."

Basically, everything's changed. "It's hard for me to return to the old routine. It's more accurate to say I'm building things from scratch. Things will never go back to what they were. I don't feel I belong here. Everything looks like vanity of vanities. Nothing has any meaning. Home, relationship, studies, work – everything is now being rebuilt. I wasn't at university for eight months. I'm relearning what it means to sit in lectures. I feel a load that I don't know how to manage, and if there's one thing I know how to do, it's to manage a load. That's my role in the reserves. Now I'm not able to string together even half an hour of concentration in front of the computer. Nothing makes sense."

'I feel comfortable with the destruction'

Yishai Rein, 32, from Jerusalem, economist at Bank Mizrahi, infantry fighter

Shock in the kibbutz. "On October 7, the whole family was in Portugal. In the evening, my team was already at Kibbutz Alumim, and I got on the first flight I could get. Ben-Gurion Airport was empty, the train station was empty, the streets were empty. In the meantime, it was like a carnival at IDF bases – artists came to perform, civilians came to do barbecues for us, there was a powerful dissonance. When I arrived, I immediately joined my team for training ahead of entering Gaza. When I met other teams that had been in Be'eri, you could see that they were in shock. They told of terrible things."

First one killed. "At first we were in northern Gaza, in an area the army controlled, but then we moved to central Gaza and a fighter was killed. From that moment, everything changed, there were more incidents. There was one Saturday when a force of ours hit an explosive device, and two soldiers were killed on the spot. Two hours later, two more killed and 10 wounded. You have no control over where and when the event will happen, whether you'll be there or not. Many incidents took place 200 meters from me. One time terrorists took us by surprise. There was a clash, and two soldiers were wounded by gunfire. The terrorists managed to escape, and people came out of it feeling they had missed a chance. I'm a paramedic and I was active in tending to the wounded, so I came out of it with a feeling of success."

Not in the name of the government. "I fought in Operation Protective Edge [in 2014], and this time I got to Gaza with fewer sentiments, fewer moral dilemmas. They abducted children, so I felt less empathy for the Gazans. When we saw from a distance children and women in an UNRWA school, I felt indifference. Although I am religious-Zionist, I am more on the left side of Israeli politics – I was against the judicial reform and I'm part of [the protest group] Brothers and Sisters in Arms. At the height of the protest I was close to signing a petition saying that I wouldn't serve in the reserves, and now I found myself doing five months of reserve duty. In my view, I didn't fight directly under the government, but under the military, which is Israel's army. When politicians showed up to give the soldiers a boost, I stayed away. I'm not fighting for them and I don't want their embrace."

Turning off emotions. "In some part of me, the vengeful side was happy at the destruction. Only when I saw a video of a Gazan with his mother on a donkey cart, asking the soldiers to stay in Gaza until they defeat Hamas, did I feel sorry for them. Before that, I overcame my emotions, because it's hard to feel pity for everyone, so I chose a side. I feel more comfortable with the destruction than uncomfortable with it. It's not pleasant to say, but it's the truth. I grew up in Switzerland, with Swiss parents, but now I'm here and I feel more of a Zionist today. The history of the Jewish people is shocking, and I understood that it makes no difference where we live, it will always be difficult, so we might as well live in Israel."

End of the news. "Doing reserve duty, I understood that there is a disconnect between the rear and the front. That made me think, and I reached the conclusion that I wanted to disconnect from all the news. I deleted all the apps, to a point were I don't even know when there's been a terrorist attack. What's important eventually reaches me. The only thing I watch on TV since the war is sports, because it's hard to distort reality in sports."

Scenes by the door. "I was really afraid to return to the family, and also to my job, which I hadn't done for half a year. It would have been easier if the war had ended, but it hasn't ended. I went back, but I know that the next callup order is already waiting for me. I haven't return the equipment, because I'll be back soon. At first, when I held our baby, she kept looking around for her mother, because she didn't recognize me. For the older one, it was too long, she kept asking why I didn't come back. But all in all, they made it easy for us. Some guys told about scenes in which the children block the door so their dad can't go back to the army."

Now, to cope. "Twice they announced we were being discharged, then we weren't. There are no comfort zones in war, just uncertainty all the time. And then, when you return home, there are the wounded and those who were killed. You feel a twinge all the time. During the days we were given for processing the events, the army provided psychologists who spoke with us. One of them said something that has accompanied me ever since: 'Don't get addicted to hardship.' When a friend asks how things are going, it's easy to say how hard things are, but for your mental health, it's better not to become addicted to difficulty."

'Destroying things satisfies something bestial'

Amir Sheffer, 30, from Nataf, student at the Weizmann Institute of Science, infantry fighter

Rich Gaza. "We entered Gaza from Zikim, via the road adjacent to the sea. It's a road with lampposts, curbstones, traffic circles – and now it's all wrecked. Along the beach, there are shanties and resorts that reminded me of Sinai. The first thing I felt is the disparity between the Gaza I'd imagined and what I actually saw. I'd imagined a refugee camp, but in the northern Strip there is wealth – estates, fields extending to the horizon, olive groves. We were in a house with a pool in the yard. The house was almost completely destroyed, but you could still see that it had been a nice home, testimony to normal life. Not far from there was the home of a Gazan businessman who was apparently important and rich. It was an estate that you entered via a wide oak door, and inside was a reception hall with Greek-style antiquities and art. At first I thought that there are probably only two houses like this, but then we entered a village called Al Atatra, where almost all the homes were beautiful and spacious, with a sea view."

Pastoral atmosphere. "When we were in the camps in the center, we moved between small villages, and again there were pleasant, spacious houses, with olive groves. The houses there weren't as luxurious as on the seashore, but you could say they were inviting. It was all very pastoral. I thought that I could be happy living there in a different life. We were in a school there with pleasant classrooms that weren't large, it looks like there were 20 to 30 students in each class. It was equipped with microscopes, and all in all it looked like a terrific school."

Like Petah Tikva. "Khan Yunis is a very crowded city. I was surprised there, too, I hadn't imagined the place like that. It felt like being in Petah Tikva – buildings of four or five stories, two apartments on each floor, and the apartments themselves were very homey, with a TV in the living room, a great kitchen, LED ceiling lights, standard children's rooms. It wasn't the extreme poverty I'd imagined before the war."

Burning the houses. "There were cases when troops burned the houses after staying in them. Why? The operational answer is that we're fighting in an area where there could be a missile under every bed. That's really the case. Usually the combat matériel would be hidden under children's beds, or in schools. It's not possible to search every item of furniture in every home, so you burn them and you know the house is clear. That's the operational reason, but I think there are other reasons. I can imagine that people see something satisfying in it. It's sad, but wreaking destruction apparently satisfies something bestial and gives people a good feeling in the gut. It's surprising how easy it is to burn a house, it's enough to torch the sofa and the whole house catches fire. The biggest fire I've heard of was in a large lumber warehouse, a hangar filled with planks all the way to the ceiling. Instead of searching each warehouse to check that there are no shafts or weapons, one can torch it, move back to a safe distance, and watch."

On the good side. "There was one time when it was decided to evacuate a school in Khan Yunis where a lot of displaced Gazans were staying. I won't forget what a huge number of Gazans were gathered in such a small place. The evacuation took place with minimum contact, the technique was super-technological. In all the post-apocalyptic movies, the good side is the non-technological side, and the bad side is the futuristic side, the guys with the robots and the computers and the faceless soldiers. I thought a lot about the fact that I'm on that side, and how much of what we think is influenced by our culture. In our case, it's clear to me that I'm still on the good side."

Fear and luck. "There was something new in this war: Conversations for mental processing what we'd experienced before being discharged. Everyone came to that without cynicism and with an open heart. We understood its importance as a tool, and good things came out of it. It's not therapeutic, more for closure and for articulating what we went through. I feel relatively healthy, I am mentally strong. I also wasn't afraid. Sometimes there was an exceptional, frightening event, but overall, on a daily basis, Gaza was reasonable. You're with your buddies, people you like and value, and you're doing something meaningful. In that regard, I feel lucky."

'We were sure there were captives there'

Omri Canfi, 29, from Rosh Ha'ayin, electrical engineer, deputy company commander

Leap into hell. "Most of the soldiers in my battalion arrived without a call-up, so by 4 P.M., everyone was at the base and ready for action. We spent the first day of the war at [Kibbutz] Kfar Azza. The first thing we saw was a vehicle at the entrance to the kibbutz, engine running, with the bodies of a mother and her daughter inside."

Quiet dropouts. "We were in the north for a month, and almost two months in Khan Yunis. At some point, 48-hour R&R furloughs began. It's a disparity that's hard to explain: at 7 P.M., you're in a tank, and by 10, you're already back in Tel Aviv. The forays home weren't good for everyone; there were guys who got mixed up by the touch of home and didn't come back. We made a decision not to put anyone on trial for that. People left behind a wife alone with the children, self-owned businesses that collapsed. The first time we let people out, for a brief R&R at home, my phone never stopped ringing. They're telling me, 'I'm wrestling between home, and country and army company.' I tried persuading them, but by the second furlough I asked them people to call, for them simply not to return and update us with a message."

The life left behind. "The landlord said he would forgo my part of the rent, which made things a lot easier for me and my girlfriend. The truth is that we had just become engaged, and when reserve duty was extended, she decided to adopt a dog to help her cope. We had planned to take off together in December for South America for four months, a post-degree trip. We were supposed to be in Brazil now.

Big missed opportunity. The captives were our driving force, it was a burning issue for people. There was a feeling that we were capable of freeing them in a military operation. There was one time when we came to a tunnel, in the wake of intelligence and objects that were found nearby, and we were certain that there would be captives in it. We were really sorry when in the end we didn't find anyone. When we were discharged, a lot of people wanted to go on fighting because of the issue of the captives. It was hard to accept that they were staying behind while in another minute we would be home."

Surprise in the houses. "We found indications of terrorism everywhere – vests, grenades, Kalashnikovs, Hamas flags, posters of shahids [martyrs], pictures of children with a Kalashnikov or of adults with an RPG. There wasn't a home where we didn't encounter something connected with Hamas or with fighting. That surprised me. I had believed that there were, on the one hand, Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad, and then there were Gazans who want peace and only by chance found themselves in this situation, but the truth is that you feel Hamas in every corner."

Ofira and Berko. "The only two civilians we saw in Gaza were an elderly woman and her disabled son. We saw through the window a woman in poor condition lying in bed, and when we questioned her it turned out that she had been left there with a bottle of water and a bag of tomatoes, because she couldn't walk south. She pointed us to her son, who had also been left behind because he wasn't able to walk. We brought them food and water and contacted the Red Cross, who arrived and took them. In the meantime, they were codenamed 'Ofira and Berko' [after a popular talk show in Israel], so we would know who we were talking about. The media in Israel reported on troops who had rescued two Gazans and were showing them episodes of 'Ofira and Berko' to pass the time. What nonsense. We didn't even have cell phones, so how were we going to show them anything?"

Success, after all. "The goal of the war – to topple Hamas and bring back the captives – wasn't fulfilled, but with everything that I was able to influence personally, namely to bring my soldiers home safely, it was fulfilled. We also had specific operational successes, like the intelligence material we found. In the end, my team and I had a feeling of mission and of success, which is something not to make light of. That could be the difference between those who will experience PTSD and those who won't."

Optimism that faded. "You meet everyone in a reserve company: Tel Aviv high-techie, settler, kibbutznik from [the zone adjoining] Gaza. If we talk politics, it's in a dignified discourse. There are no remarks like you hear outside – you don't hear 'leftist traitor' or 'messianic fascist.' As long as I was in the reserves I felt optimistic about Israel, but when I got out, that changed. My fiancée and I went on a trip and stopped at a winery, and at the table next to ours were six people who never stopped arguing loudly. I couldn't stand listening to it, so, unusually for me, I went over to them and said that I had left Khan Yunis two days before and that I didn't have the strength to listen to arguing. They apologized."

'I was the only woman, I became "a bro" in every sense'

Litav Ash, 26, from Moshav Tzafririm, studying medical technology, paramedic

Suddenly you're a fighter. "By the morning of October 8, I had already reported for reserve duty. Originally, I did not come from a combat service, and I had to learn how to be a combatant – to know the signs, understand what to do and when, how to wear full equipment and maintain maximum vigilance for long periods of time."

First event. "When we had to treat injured soldiers for the first time, I was very nervous. Before that I had never been on a battlefield where fighting was still going on. It was scary: There was a threat against the point where the casualties were, and we couldn't get to them with the vehicles. We advanced on foot, while in the background there was shooting from every direction, and mortars that can throw you in the air. The smell of gunpowder is suffocating, just when you need to run as fast as you can. When we got to the wounded, we found that they were dead already. The sight was shocking."

Second event. "Shortly after the first incident, while still analyzing what we could improve in the future, we were thrown into another incident. We knew it was a high casualty scene. When we got there, we applied all the lessons we had discussed a few minutes earlier. We functioned with high efficiency, and within a short time all the injured had received initial treatment and were quickly evacuated."

Take care of friends mentally. "The events became more and more difficult, because I had gotten to know the people I was now treating. I got to sit down with many of them for coffee or a conversation. We laughed a lot, we cried even more. And then suddenly you have to take care of their severe injuries and everything is much more complicated. I also had the chance to treat my commander. I have known him since I was a regular soldier. It was very difficult, I had to cut off my emotions and act professionally and quickly. Today he is in a better condition, but until he was out of danger, there was a lot of anxiety."

Alone among men. "Many women served in the battalion, but I was the only female combatant who entered Gaza, until the last week when another medic joined me. I did not feel that I was treated differently because I am a woman. Although they helped me and took care of me, they didn't give me any discounts. I was treated as one of the gang, a full-fledged fighter. I grew up with boys, so I was not embarrassed by the daily conduct among men. I became 'a bro' in every aspect."

Home. On the one hand, I wanted to go home and rest from the sounds of war, but on the other hand, I preferred being in Gaza with my unit than at home, because you are all charged up, and the people back at home don't understand and everything seems unrelated. I had an unspoken agreement with my family that when I got home, we wouldn't talk about the politics or about fighting. There was one relatively long break, after which I felt like I'd lost my focus. It took me a day in Gaza to understand again where I was.

I have changed. I had a lot of concerns about the end of reserve duty, and returning home. I felt that I couldn't just go back to the full routine I had before the war, that I needed time alone to get to know my new self. It turned out that I took almost a month off from work before I felt focused enough to work again. The war changed me. My priorities in life have changed, and now I try to do only what is good for me, only what gives me strength. I have left behind some of the things I did before, and maybe that's hard for some people around me to accept. It's not easy with family and friends, they were used to a certain person and now I'm different.

2024-05-03T22:00:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd