"Dear Mom and Dad, I love you very much. I chose this path myself. I've lived a good and interesting life. Nevertheless, I have never been afraid of death. I made this choice myself and followed it through to the end. I fell with honor for the sake of my people. I have no regrets. I love you very much and am proud that you are my parents. You gave me so much. I had a very interesting, rich, happy and unique life. My death only underscores that. You are surely in great pain, but you will overcome it. I really wish for that. Both of you have many people close to you who will support you. Please find something positive in all of this. Be with your grandchildren. Help Israel. I'm okay."
The above is a pre-written letter by IDF Master Sergeant Joseph Gitarts to his parents, in the event of his death. He fell in Gaza on Monday, leaving behind words of strength, pride and compassion for his now bereaved parents.
It is Day 83 of the war, and our totals for lost soldiers since the ground war began is 167. If you include those slaughtered on October 7th, the total is 495.
It is not understood by most in America and various western countries about the impact of our soldiers being lost here in Israel. It isn't like there are rare military families, and that soldiers are far-removed from society. Everyone in Israel is a soldier, as all citizens serve. Men do a mandatory three years, and women a year and nine months. This means that Israelis from all parts of Israeli society - farms, cities, religious and secular backgrounds - are grouped together for years, forming life-long bonds. Therefore, when any one soldier is killed, Israelis can within minutes find a friend who served in that soldier's unit, or a friend who served with his parents.
It is also not understood what this means for society, to grow up with the knowledge of this country's history, this country's predicament and this country being crucial to guarantee the safety for world Jewry. This is no small task and no small responsibility - yet it is not something people complain about. In fact, I am losing track of the friends I have who tried everything to enlist from the US and Canada, or who are older than 40 and begged to volunteer. This is a duty that is embraced, for the love of our people and our nation, in a country whose citizens instinctively value others over self.
Each loss is devastating, and losses are mounting. Recently on more than one occasion, we have woken up to news of another eight young men having lost their lives. The funerals seem to be unending as the grief continues with no end in sight.
Since my last post, we had a major tragedy, one that upset me too much to write.
A major part of this war is to retrieve our now 129 hostages, a near-impossible task, given their being mostly kept underground in mazes of tunnels, zigzagging throughout the Gaza Strip, for hundreds of miles.
However, Hamas tricks our soldiers, enticing them into areas only to ambush them. For example, a large teddy bear, which it turned out was stuffed with guns and ammunition, was playing a recording of children's voices calling for help in Hebrew. Hamas also misrepresent themselves as civilians or shirtless with their hands up and surrendering which ends up not being true, so our soldiers, justifiably, need to constantly be ready for terrorists to appear from anywhere, as they pop out of tunnels to launch an attack and then vanish.
So, when three of our hostages, after seventy days of captivity, managed to escape, and took all precautions they could think of to alert the IDF that they were not Hamas - they were shot dead by our soldiers, in a completely innocent mistake based on the experience they are having combatting this terror group in Gaza. It hadn't occurred to them that our hostages could be out in Gaza City since this had not yet happened - now it's a new challenge to be on alert for.
"A horrible tragedy!" I received via WhatsApp late that night, which caused me to check the news, and I was instantly sick.
To have survived the massacre on October 7th, followed by horrific conditions and torture underground for seventy days, and actually escape - and be that close to safety - and die by "friendly fire." That is what happened to these three young men here on December 14th.
A report on this occurrence was released minutes ago, and it sounds like mistakes were made. Initially two of the three were shot, sending the third into hiding, and commanders ordered the IDF not to shoot again - yet the third was nevertheless also shot as the instructions were drowned out by the noise of a nearby tank. As of now, no disciplinary action has been taken as this was not a deliberate killing of our hostages - it was confusion due to the chaotic fighting conditions in Gaza, though this could change.
What won't change is the pain and horror of this mistake being felt by every Israeli.
One of the fathers, Avi Shamriz, spoke to NBC, stating: "I'm going to say this to the government. You murdered my son twice. You let Hamas take my son on October 7th and you killed my son on December 14th."
Yet Iris Haim, the mother of the redhead Yotam, had a different initial reaction, and left a voicemail for Battalion 17, responsible for the shooting. This is the transcript and translation:
I am sure most of us can understand the reaction of the father, but this reaction by the mother truly took my breath away. I am in wonder of her strength in such a devastating moment.
Moving on to one of the more familiar faces of this war to me - Judith Weinstein Haggai, aged 70. She and her husband Gadi, lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz and were one of the first to encounter the horror of what was about to happen, as they were out on their morning walk that Saturday, October 7th, at 6:30am.
Judy captured the rockets overhead on camera and when her husband was shot, she called Emergency Services and informed them of the impending terror attack, stating that Hamas terrorists had come in on the roads, that they were on motorbikes.
Their departure for this walk was captured on the Kibbutz's cameras, chillingly minutes before their fate, yet until a few hours ago, the fate of Judy was that she was the oldest female hostage still being held in Gaza, even after news last week that her husband, also missing, had been murdered there. Well today we learned that Judy was also murdered and not recently, but on that day - October 7th. Her body was taken into Gaza and kept all of this time, so her family, which includes her 94-year-old mother and various people in New York, only learned today that she has been dead this entire time.
She and her husband, who both had Israeli and American citizenship, were peace activists and had four children and seven grandchildren. Judy was an English teacher and worked with children with special needs. She was also a mindfulness and meditation teacher.
What this must do to the 129 families still awaiting news of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters cannot be imagined.
This post is dedicated to all who knew and loved Joseph Gitarts, Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, Samar Talalka, Judith Weinstein Haggai and Gadi Haggai.
May their memories be a blessing.
------- In case you want to help:
This is a labor of love and I feel called to do it, but admit it has started to cost a small fortune, between flights, rent at home, accommodation here and the building of this website, which still needs work to maximize visibility. I have therefore just started a GoFundMe in the hopes of getting a little bit of help to stay here another month or two to conduct these interviews with families of hostages and cover the war from the ground. Any donation, no matter how small, will go toward accommodation and bare bone travel expenses. Anything at all will be tremendously helpful and very much appreciated. With gratitude, Melanie
Very touching and scary at the same time. Thanks for this update.