October 26, 2023

ITC Update: Operation Iron Swords

Day 20

Thursday 26.10.23

A barrage of rockets was launched toward central and southern Israel on Wednesday evening. Air raid sirens sounded in Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Bat Yam, Rosh Ha’ayin and many surrounding towns, and Ashdod. A rocket crashed into a home in Rishon Lezion, lightly wounding three people — a woman in her 40s hurt by shards of glass, a man 80 wounded by shrapnel and a woman, 75, being treated for smoke inhalation and 12 treated for shock.

Thursday afternoon has seen another barrage of rockets fired at the Tel Aviv area.

Southern Front: IDF forces carried out an incursion into Gaza overnight, described as the largest since the war began. The IDF said the incursion was carried out “in preparation for the next stages of combat”.  This heightened state of readiness for the next stage is mentally debilitating for everyone.

Northern Front: There were at least half a dozen incidents of anti-tank missile and rocket fire from Lebanese territory towards civilian and military positions close to the border. Air defense systems intercepted a surface-to-air missile launched from Lebanon at an Israeli military drone on Wednesday night, amid continued exchanges with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group and allied Palestinian factions.

Minister Benny Gantz reportedly told a group of evacuees from Zikim and Netiv Ha’asara, that they were unlikely to return to their homes in the coming year and that they should be prepared to remain in hotels paid for by the state for another three months before eventually being transferred to alternative housing. A recent appeal, led by WZO, to Jewish communities in Israel and across the Diaspora, has been issued urging those who possess vacant apartments in Israel to make them available for the well-being of residents from the south.

ITC on the ground

Work with evacuees continues in over 200 hotels nationwide. Rising concerns regarding economic anxieties, unemployment, and the lack of routine all negatively affect the availability and openness to begin trauma treatment. In addition, those with young children require the infrastructure and childcare arrangements so that they have the time and space for trauma care.

Evacuees from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the lobby of a hotel in Eilat on October 17, 2023. (Aris MESSINIS / AFP)

The requests to work with First Responder teams, including police, firefighters, and ZAKA personnel increase daily. 

Since the onset of the conflict, ZAKA trucks have been arriving at the National Center of Forensic Medicine, each transporting bodies wrapped in black sacks, each sack labeled with a number. “I’ve been a forensic pathologist for over 30 years, so it’s rare for anything to truly shock me”, Dr. Kugel, the institute’s director said. “I have witnessed it all, I scrutinized every detail, observing bodies subjected to horrifying abuse, from adults to children, in various states of decay. But nothing, nothing in my entire career, prepared me for the horrors we’ve seen”.

Teams of police officers now tasked with the responsibility of interviewing survivors and ZAKA volunteers recording their harrowing accounts need support.

Today we received the tragic news of a bus driver who everyone knew, a driver from back in the days of Gush Katif, a kind and sensitive soul that all the children of Gush Katif knew and loved. On the evening after Simchat Torah, he drove with his bus to evacuate survivors of Be’eri. Exposed to harrowing scenes his soul was broken. Since that night, he was never the same. This morning, he was found in his bus with no signs of life.

The circles of grief and bereavement expand daily. Bereaved families and orphans of prior terrorist attacks. They are very vulnerable now and they need our help.