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How Olim Are Helping Israel’s War Effort, Part 2: A War Room Providing Soldiers With Critical Supplies
Friends in Jaffa co-founder Raphael Danan (right) and volunteer Jacob Herriots with IDF soldiers who had put in a request for a small refrigerator for medical supplies for their trauma unit. Photo courtesy of Friends in Jaffa.
Since the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre, immigrants who moved to Israel (olim in Hebrew) have been helping the Jewish state’s war effort in crucial ways beyond the battlefield. The Algemeiner has spoken to several of these individuals — natives of the US, Europe, and elsewhere — gathering their stories of courage and resourcefulness to help Israel prevail over Hamas in Gaza. Over the coming weeks, The Algemeiner will share some of these stories as a new series on how olim are helping Israel’s war effort. To read part one, click here.
On Oct. 8, Raphael Danan, a British-Israeli resident of Jaffa, spoke to a close friend who was one of 300,000 reservists who had been called up a day earlier. The friend ended the call with what seemed like an inconsequential gripe in light of the profound horror that had just taken place. “We don’t have toothpaste or toothbrushes,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier complained.
It prompted Danan to reach out to local WhatsApp groups and start a fundraising drive to procure basic supplies for the soldiers — items like socks and undershirts. The next day, Danan and another volunteer made their first supply run to a base. More than two months later, the volunteer-run group, called Friends in Jaffa (FiJ), is still going strong and, to date, has donated thousands of supplies to soldiers — anything from gloves to tactical gear like tourniquets.
Volunteers either procure the items for free or raise funds for a particular project. In some cases, the supplies themselves come from a particular Jewish community in the US. The Jewish community of Miami, for example, donated 500 military-grade rain suits. But no less important than the suits were the notes to the soldiers written by children in the community. “The soldiers were so, so happy to receive them,” said Amelia Bagnoli, an FiJ volunteer originally from Canada.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren lauded the group’s efforts, saying they were “crucial for our forces in the field.”
“[The soldiers] have great needs, needs for various types of equipment that haven’t been supplied by the IDF, and the Friends in Jaffa are working assiduously night and day to supply those needs,” Oren said.
Itai, a company commander stationed on Israel’s northern border, said FiJ had “entered my heart” because they were as efficient as they were compassionate. According to the 29-year-old, who asked that only his first name be used, the IDF has the resources to supply units with what they need, but the process is often laborious and entangled in bureaucracy.
FiJ, on the other hand, takes a comprehensive inventory of what’s needed and can “find a supplier within an hour and can even get [the items] to us within a day,” he said. “The army cannot compete. It can take a week or more.”
Another IDF soldier, Bar Peleg, also lauded the group for its accuracy in servicing the soldiers’ specific needs. “What we ask for is what we get. This is better than other civilian [groups] who have tried to do this but who don’t do this so well, despite their good intentions.”
Itai — who was a resident of Nachal Oz, one of the Gaza-envelope communities that was hit hard on Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists — added that the supplies sourced by FiJ were of superior quality.
“The [IDF] gear is good enough but it’s not the best. I believe that my soldiers need to get the best and I’m not ashamed to say it,” he said.
Bagnoli explained that proper equipment had the ability to mitigate the “psychological stress” soldiers were under.
“If there’s any way of reducing their stress, even if it’s sleeping on a field bed instead [of the floor] or having dry socks — we were told by commanders that it reduces the chances of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] later on,” she said.
Danan praised the volunteers’ “incredible fortitude.”
“There is so much determination by the volunteers in doing these missions, but it’s a two-way street. The soldiers’ appreciation creates a really special bond and is more than enough of a reward for us,” he said.
The post How Olim Are Helping Israel’s War Effort, Part 2: A War Room Providing Soldiers With Critical Supplies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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