Think about a 30-year-old man. Let's call him S. He has three children and works at a high-tech company. He returned to his job after serving four months in Gaza. He was in the northern and southern parts of the strip, and was at Al Shifa Hospital, twice. An Armored Corps officer.
He was lightly injured and continued fighting. He shot at terrorists who appeared out of a tunnel near troops close to him. Now he needs to sit in his office and take phone calls. He loves this role, but it seems so strange to him. A phone call doesn't make sense when someone fired missiles at his tank only moments ago.
Think also about his wife. About his children. They hardly saw him for months. Most of the time, he wasn't available. And they were so worried about him. Every knock on the door made them jump. Every loud noise startled them. And now he's back to his routine, but not really.
S. will sit at this Passover seder and remember all of the houses he raided, family homes where weapon caches were allegedly found below the children's beds.
I want to dedicate this article to S. and his friends with great appreciation.
Who are S. and his friends? I've met many of them in recent months. I'll tell you about them. I'll tell you about a soldier who was discharged and one night, when he was at home, the washing machine made a slightly unusual noise. He jumped out of bed with his pistol.
I want you to meet another soldier, who was injured in Gaza and told me he's recovering well and working hard in his rehabilitation and feels great, but just before I left him his girlfriend approached and quietly told me that he struggles at night. She sees him fighting in his sleep. That he has nightmares. He mumbles and sweats, and she hugs him, and sometimes wakes him up to show him that everything's okay.
Passover is coming soon, and it's important, very much so, to return to regular routine. There's something healing in routine. But it's important not to forget there are still those who don't have a routine.
It's not only the hostages and their families, not only the bereaved families, not only the injured who are in rehabilitation alongside their families. It's also those who are supposedly well. They returned from reserve service, but they're still there. "Everything seems very stupid to me," a friend who was in Gaza for several months tells me.
"I'm so impatient. I burst into houses in Jabaliya and engaged in battles with terrorists only a moment ago, and now I'm supposed to talk normally to my colleagues? I'll probably be drafted again in May. I was in Gaza for a few months, and I'm supposed to enter Lebanon.
"I'll do it, of course, for my country, but honestly, do they expect a middle-aged man with three children to fight in Gaza and Lebanon, with all that it entails, and be a normal person when he's not eliminating terrorists? We've become war machines to protect our country, it happened in a moment, it was the result of that terrible pogrom. But to go back to who we were? It takes more than a moment to do that."
I want to tell you about a person who was on reserve duty for five months. He's still in the reserves. He started in Gaza, then moved to the northern border. He was celebrating Simchat Torah and studying for his Bar exam. He took it while on reserve duty. He managed to arrive at the exam from his post, take it, and then return to war. He didn't pass. He needed two more points. Now, you might say, did he even have a chance? In this case, I've known him from my youth. He's a genius.
But it's impossible to pass the Bar exam when you don't study and arrive from the military. But that's not the point: The point is that these guys need to fight all the time. They deserve rights, but this isn't working as well as it should. It isn't facilitated. Instead of rolling out the red carpet everywhere they go, they have to explain themselves and beg.
An officer who was in Gaza told me that his company lauded him. They sent him gifts at first. But then they got tired. He's still in Gaza, but the gifts stopped coming. And he doesn't need these cakes, he just feels alone; like everyone else moved on with their lives and he's somewhere else. He doesn't even have a bonus this year because a bonus is earned for achievements he didn't have. I mean, he had achievements – he uncovered tunnels in Rimal, but you don't get a bonus for that.
Passover is almost here, and it's as if everything is normal, but there's a soldier who lost his sight in Gaza. I met him. A smart young man who went to battle and came back blind. He sits in his bed. His mother doesn't leave him for a second. He's determined not to break down, but I'm breaking down for him. I can't find inner peace when I think about the rest of his life being in complete darkness.
Passover is almost here, and it's as if everything is normal, but there's a person who was about to finish his degree and served in the reserves. His head was injured. And he's not who he was before. He's alive, but who knows where he really is? I talk to him, and he responds, but not really. His family asks me to keep talking to him; they say he hears, but I notice his brother's sad looks, who looks at us and misses who he was.
Passover is almost here, and it's as if everything is normal, but our brothers are found in pits underground. And I swear to myself, in my commitment to them, that each of the soldiers held hostage there is my own son. Each of the female soldiers is my daughter. Every Israeli taken from his bed near the border and held somewhere for half a year is my family member.
I asked a soldier from an undercover unit what the terror tunnels feel like. Moist, he told me. Very moist. Hot and damp. It's hard to breathe. He told me he touched the head of a caught terrorist who was there for a few months (he had to cover his eyes), and his hair fell off. Now imagine what our hostages, who have been in there for 190 days, are going through?
Hanoch Daum Photo: Dana KopelPeople aren't supposed to live underground.
So we'll make preparations for Passover and ask who's coming to celebrate, and there will be good food and fine wine. But this year, every person must see themselves as if they've been kidnapped to Gaza.
Hanoch Daum is an Israeli journalist and media personality