Arielle Bouhadana
Censorship Editor
Hi everyone, my name is Yair Greenblum and I live in Neve Daniel, Israel. I finished my army service two years ago, in the Paratroopers Unit, in Brigade 890. After being in Yeshiva for a bit, I came to Montreal for Shlichut this year. Before coming, I told my commander that if anything were to happen in Israel, I would be the first to return.
What did Oct 7 look like for you and what happened in the following days?
One month and a half into my time here, the war started and I immediately knew I needed to return to Israel when my unit was being called up. I got into contact with people from the Mossad, got tickets from JFK to Athens, where we flew in giant army airplanes to Israel. The day after I arrived in Israel, I attended my friend’s funeral, Yosef Malachi Guedalia Z”L.
Where were you stationed in Gaza, what was your role?
Being a reserve duty unit, we needed a few weeks to retrain and prepare for evacuations, house searches, handling grenades, and working with tanks. One month after that, we went into a bunch of missions in the West Bank, arresting terrorists and finding weapons. Then we went to Gaza, where I was sent to be a driver of army vehicles, in charge of evacuating injured soldiers of our battalion. My time in Gaza was divided into 3 parts. The first was in Jabalia (North) where we entered Gazan houses, found anti-Israel propaganda and weapons, tunnels in kindergartens, and weaponry in mosques. The second part of Gaza was when I did many evacuations of injured soldiers, in the area of Zeitoun. During that time, we needed to be ready to evacuate at all times, which meant we slept in our clothes and shoes, sometimes in cars, ready to leave within any minute. We spent a month and a half in Zeitoun, where we were constantly under rocket fire. The last portion in Gaza was in Khan Yunis, for a week and a half.
Were there any losses you encountered while in Gaza?
There were many casualties in our unit, two of our soldiers died in Zeitoun, and in Khan Yunis, two terrorists surprise attacked us in a house, killing the commander, 3 other soldiers, and injuring others very seriously.
How did you eat and sleep while you were in Gaza?
Every 24-48 hours, we received deliveries of food, water, batteries, equipment and whatever supplies we needed. We needed to request specifically in advance or we would get nothing. We ate dry foods and used the generators of the homes in Gaza to use for electricity. We slept in Gaza houses for 1-2 weeks at a time, making sure to cover all the windows with dark material, because we could not be seen. Some houses had bombs in them, special units had to come make sure it was safe.
Did you have any contact with the outside world?
I had a radio on me at all times, this is how I knew of war updates and heard that two of my friends had passed away. Sometimes, we found cell service in Gaza and called our families, making sure that our phones were on airplane mode at all other times so as not to be tracked by Hamas.
What motivated you to keep going, day in and day out?
In my head, there was no way that my friends were about to go to war without me. I had to come back to Israel as fast as possible because I couldn’t see myself not in Gaza with my friends. Also, my job in Gaza, driving the vehicles and maneuvering all these situations made me feel very useful and needed. It’s the first time in my life that I really got to save lives, and this stayed at the front of my mind always.
What do you have to say to people who claim the IDF’s response is disproportionate?
I saw with my own eyes what was happening in Gaza. There is no way that any other army in the world would’ve been so thoughtful and careful for civilian life. Every place that the army went into, we evacuated all civilians before arriving. We found civilian families used as human shields, and we helped them as much as possible. In the history of wars, there has never been such a thing that the army only targets terrorists. In war, civilians die, we prefer our soldiers to be safe, but I never saw any other army act so morally towards the civilians. Every hospital we went to, we gave aid and enabled trucks to enter their final destinations.
What was your biggest takeaway from your time in Gaza?
One of the biggest things I learned is that there are so many things in our lives that we think are the priority. Suddenly, you find yourself in Gaza and you realize that there are so many things that do not matter in the big picture. Seeing people be taken and die, we understand how much our life is worth. With every argument and inconvenience, we begin to ask ourselves, “is this really so important, that I’m willing to give up everything for it”?
Thank you Yair for your brave service and inspiration!
Comments