Israel Active

An orthodox Jewish man stood by the counter of El Al Airlines at JFK airport and paid for anyone's flight who presented him with an IDF call-up notice. He paid for 250 tickets.

A Bedouin IDF Lieutenant Colonel saved the lives of the wives and children of IDF officers at the division's Re'im base. He removed his IDF uniform, called to the infiltrating terrorists in Arabic, and then eliminated them when they emerged, thinking he was also a Hamas terrorist.

Instead of sheltering during the Hamas rocket barrage on Oct 7, Inbal Rabin-Liberman, head of the security at Kibbutz Nir Am, armed her 12-person team. They were then able to defend against the infiltrating Hamas terrorists for almost three and a half hours until the IDF arrived.

Rachel and David Edri survived a harrowing 20-hour ordeal, holed up with terrorists in their home in Ofakim. Rachel offered refreshments to the five terrorists, and later a meal, engaged them in small talk, playing for time until an elite IDF unit arrived and eliminated the terrorists.

Lior Raz, Tsahi Halevi and Idan Amedi are among the actors of the popular Israeli TV series Fauda who have joined the hundreds of thousands of IDF reservists. Lior posted “headed down south to join hundreds of brave "brothers in arms" volunteers”. They extracted families from the bombarded town of Sderot.

The family of 23-year-old IDF Lt. Roi Nahari, killed by Hamas, donated his organs to five patients at Israel’s Beilinson Hospital. His liver went to a 44-year-old mother of five, suffering from hepatitis for 30 years.

So many Israelis wanted to donate blood for the wounded that many blood donation centers only accepted those with blood type O, which can be transfused universally.

I “normally” report about Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID when it responds to global disasters. When the disaster is much closer to home, IsraAID is also there for us. IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer will be speaking at a free zoom meeting hosted by ESRA on Oct 24.

It’s at these times that the people of Israel come together to help those who have been most impacted by these tragic events.  Not just dedicated humanitarian organizations but hi-tech companies such as Mobileye, OurCrowd, More Foods, and even the Israel Tennis Education Centers.

There are literally thousands of articles describing the help that Israel’s friends overseas are sending to the IDF and Israelis affected by the war in Gaza.  Here are some of them.