Evacuation from the Heart

These IDF soldiers carrying out the disengagement deserve medals. They have shown such compassion, under immense emotional pressure from the settlers to disobey orders. This account from the ABC was indicitave of their high level of morality and love towards the settlers.

MARK WILLACY: Yes, we did actually see a couple of soldiers yesterday who were in tears, they did find it very stressful and very difficult to even talk to the settlers about removing them from their homes.

So there definitely are soldiers within the Israeli army who are very uncomfortable with what they're being told to do.

And I suppose we also saw that the soldiers have taken a very softly-softly approach to the settlers in this settlement of Morag in particular.

When the soldiers were finally allowed to walk through the barricades at the front of the settlement, they walked up to the first house, they knocked on the door, they moved in, they were invited in for tea and coffee and some food, and it took over two hours for these soldiers to issue their first eviction order, because they had to talk to the first resident here; there was a lot of discussion.

So that's how long it took inside the first house, and they're still going here today, and it's not a very big settlement. So it is a process that will take time, and the soldiers are treading very softly indeed.

Amazing. I wish there were more stories describing Tzahal this way. Here is another from the IDF site.

For many years, 'Or' evacuating battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Roni Sari, met with Yaakov Lev every morning. As the commander of the building centre at the Tel Nof IAF base, he never dreamed that one day he would be in charge of evacuating Lev, a citizen who still works for the IDF as a commander in the central economic branch, from his house in Eley Sinai. This week Sari insisted on delivering the evacuation notice personally.

"I will remain here until your good people come to take me out of here" said Lev from his living room in Eley Sinai, to Sari and Major Chai, the Commander of Company 'Gimmel' of the Battalion. "We are here to help you," explained the Company Commander. "I love you," responded Lev with tears. "We came to Eley Sinai with nothing, and it looks like we will be leaving here with nothing." Sari recounted to Lev that: "When they told me I was going to have to evacuate Eley Sinai, I saw your family in my eyes."

Am Yisreal Chai