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With young adults off to war, Israeli teens are stepping up in their communities
This story was produced as part of the JTA Teen Journalism Fellowship program.
(JTA) — After her husband left abruptly to join his army unit, Meytal Blumenthal Gordon realized she still hadn’t disassembled her sukkah, the temporary structure the family put up during the Sukkot holiday at their home in Jerusalem. She wasn’t physically capable of doing so alone.
“Two sweet boys, teenagers, came and they took down the sukkah and helped me organize it,” Blumenthal Gordon said. “We actually had a siren in the middle. We all ran to the shelter, and then they continued helping.”
It wasn’t the only time that neighborhood teens have stopped by to help Blumenthal Gordon in the weeks since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel plunged the country into war. They have also brought her boxes of food and helped her with her two children, a 5-year-old boy and a newborn daughter.
It’s all part of an abrupt and notable shift in a country that uniquely refers to school-aged teens as being in “the stupid age.” In ordinary circumstances, Israeli teens are not assigned many responsibilities before they graduate from high school, in a nod to the fact that most will enter compulsory military service soon after turning 18, cutting short the extended adolescence that many of their peers in other countries enjoy.
But since war began earlier this month, most young Israeli men and some women have been drafted into military service. With schools closed until recently, teens have been uniquely positioned to step into the gap.
Thousands of teens have been organizing independently and through youth groups to volunteer to babysit, dismantle sukkahs, prepare food for soldiers and stock refrigerators. Some have even been digging graves.
Youth group buildings have become shelters for those displaced from the south, near Gaza, and groups of teens have been organizing donations of food and other essentials.
“It brings the whole nation together, especially in times like these,” said Hallel Heller, a ninth-grader from Jerusalem who spent the first week of the war packaging meals for soldiers.
Other teens, like Shefer Zimran, 14, who hails from the West Bank city of Efrat, are helping younger children affected by the war. Together with friends from her neighborhood, Zimran handed out bags of candy and art supplies to children who are home from school in her community. Zimran later sent videos of art projects to keep the children busy. Zimran knew that mothers whose husbands had been drafted had trouble keeping their small children occupied.
“It is important, now more than ever, to help people in need,” Zimran said. “And we have free time and the ability to help.”
Odelia Kaye, 16, from Jerusalem, has been offering practical and emotional support for mothers who are now caring for young children on their own. “Sometimes they’re alone and it’s really difficult to take care of kids by yourself,” she said.
In addition to playing with children, washing dishes, cleaning up and folding laundry for mothers on their own, Kaye has found that what is sometimes most appreciated is the company.
“I feel like the more I’ve done it, the more I’ve learned about how difficult it is for some of these moms who have really small children, including young babies, a couple of months old,” said Kaye. “These moms need emotional support. It’s easy to feel alone and it’s important for me to make sure that these people know that they’re not alone and that I’m there to help.”
Blumenthal Gordon said she is accustomed to being alone because her husband, a physician, is often away for extended periods, so it’s not just the loneliness that local teens help her battle.
“Emotionally, it’s very different,” she said. “I’m so worried about my husband, we’re constantly running to a shelter, and the energy is really low. Having the teenagers over gives good vibes.”
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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.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.