[ Although all of Israel is under fire from Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah rockets, all of those who have had to relocate have found refuge with others or via the government.
I do not see the same happening in Gaza with the 500,000 people who have moved south. Is it because so many rockets fall inside Gaza? Are some people being taken in in other towns, villages? We do know that Hamas has not built bunkers for the wider population but only for themselves, 300 miles of tunnels which the population cannot hide in. The lack of respect for a life is astounding.
Israel Strong !!!! ]
During the harrowing days since over 2,500 Hamas terrorists poured into Israel to slaughter 1,400 people, injure thousands, commit barbaric acts of atrocity against people of all ages and kidnap more than 200 to Gaza, civil society has quickly mobilized to an almost overwhelming degree.
Around 15,000 Israelis have answered the clarion call of movements that metamorphosed overnight from activists against the government’s divisive judicial reform proposals to coordinators of a massive
infrastructure to rescue and support fellow citizens in distress.
That infrastructure, based at the Expo Tel Aviv International Convention Center since the day after the massacres, subsequently evacuated 3,000 citizens from the Gaza border communities, 200 of them under fire.
As of Thursday morning, when this reporter visited the convention center, it had distributed nearly two-thirds of 12,526 items of civilian equipment donated, found accommodation for nearly 8,000 displaced families, distributed 120,000 food portions and 200 packs of medical supplies, transported 8,000 civilians and soldiers, provided more than 1,000 activities for evacuated children, and sent out 150 sets of
shiva (seven-day mourning period) equipment — gazebos, plastic tables and chairs, fans, water heaters and refreshments. It had even rescued 120 pets.
For months, anti-overhaul organizations such as Brothers in Arms (made up of military reserve soldiers),
Building an Alternative (a women’s group founded by Moran Zer Katzenstein), and the tech worker, student and lawyer protest groups, were castigated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his ministers and much of the right-wing as leftist traitors who wanted to bring Israeli democracy and the country down.
But as the government scrambled to react to the Hamas invasion that it and Israel’s security establishment had failed to foresee, these groups were able to utilize their nationwide networks and organizational skills to step into the breach.
At the massive situation hub in Tel Aviv, volunteers organize everything from medical supplies, psychological support, and clothing and equipment for evacuees from the Gaza border area — many of whom left just with the clothes on their backs — to a system that unites families with their pets.
“From 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 7, we began to get lots of messages from places like Kfar Aza,” explained anti-judicial reform activist Tamir Reicher. More than 70 kibbutz members were murdered by the terrorists that day, including many children and
babies, with
testimony that some of them were
beheaded.
Initially working from their homes, a group of friends quickly established a situation room at Kama Junction in southern Israel, which is still operating, and by 11 a.m. they were dispatching volunteers, not all of them armed, to rescue people under terrorist siege.
(full article online)
Movements set up to oppose government's judicial overhaul bid metamorphose overnight to coordinate unprecedented civilian rescue and relief effort
www.timesofisrael.com
