The War’s Not Over and IDF Soldiers Still Need Our Help

After Hamas’s atrocities of October 7 plunged Israel into war, my wife and I worked with generous friends and with parents of soldiers in the units in which our three sons were serving to secure the essential gear the IDF was unable to provide. As we neared the finish line in enabling these 200 soldiers to be safer and more effective in Gaza, I was looking forward to resuming the life of an academic—writing articles and giving occasional lectures explaining why Israel was justified in fighting aggressively against terrorists, while continuing to devote most of my time to helping develop Shalem College as a school for Israel’s future leaders.

But after learning in conversations with combat officers about the dire situation throughout the army, I just couldn’t do it. I knew that tens of thousands of soldiers lacked equipment that could maximize their chances of coming home at war’s end healthy in body and spirit. While I was living safely and comfortably in Jerusalem, these young men and women were enduring cold, rainy conditions in Gaza and taking part in bloody battles in which dozens of them were killed and hundreds injured. I therefore joined forces with a pair of IDF reserve officers who had graduated from Shalem, and we calculated the cost of providing to the 33 IDF units in Gaza that had asked for our help the items they were missing from among the 14 types of gear we considered lifesaving. The total was $6.6 million, and since we were discovering new, undersupplied units every day, we guessed that the actual needs must be at least three times that great—and decided to do our part. In one of the least thought-out decisions of my overly rational life, I dashed off an impassioned email to 400 friends announcing a $10 million campaign and asking for their support.

Within days, we were inundated with the generous responses of my friends and of the people to whom they had reached out. As this campaign was successfully wrapping up, my teammates and I learned of additional needs facing IDF units and subsequently launched four more campaigns, which have brought in more than $30 million. This has enabled us to provide ceramic plates, helmets, protective glasses, night-vision equipment, drones, surveillance cameras, and other vital gear to tens of thousands of soldiers. These purchases have, in dozens of cases that we know about, directly prevented the loss of life and severe injury among the brave men and women defending our country.

My colleagues and I always knew that we would continue our initiative only as long as there was an acute need. Recently, it has been suggested that perhaps it is time to declare that our mission has been accomplished and to leave pro-Israel donors in peace to move on to other, worthy causes. This suggestion is based on two main premises. First, the multi-front war seems to be drawing to a close and hence the need for equipment is diminished. Second, now that the IDF has had 15 months to equip its soldiers, it seems inconceivable that the army of the Start-Up Nation, which has performed brilliantly in decapitating Hezbollah’s leadership, taking out Iran’s defenses, and degrading Hamas is unable to provide the gear needed by our front-line troops.

It is tempting to accept this line of thinking and wind down my brief but rewarding career as a volunteer civilian quartermaster. I would love to devote all my work time to Shalem, return to a book-writing project I set aside, and give up the habit of staying up until 3 a.m. writing to donors. However, it’s premature to scale back private initiatives to provide gear for a simple reason: neither of the premises advanced for doing so is based on a correct understanding of the facts.

First, the war is not over. There are still tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers in harm’s way, and this will be the case for the coming weeks and probably months. Fierce fighting has been taking place recently in many areas of Gaza, and IDF soldiers have suffered casualties in heartbreaking numbers. Yesterday, two members of a Nahal reconnaissance battalion were injured in a clash in northern Gaza, and in a separate battle nearby (about which you can read here) two fighters in Nahal infantry battalion 932 were killed and two injured. Though negotiations are ongoing, as they have been for well over a year, there is still no deal and no certainty that one will be reached. (For details on the current impasse, see here and here.)

In Lebanon, IDF troops are confronting Hezbollah operatives and destroying terrorist infrastructure every day. The ceasefire agreement calls for a phased Israeli withdrawal by January 26, in parallel to Hezbollah moving its operatives north of the Litani River and the Lebanese army’s taking up positions in the country’s south and removing all Hezbollah terror infrastructure. According to Israel, however, Hezbollah has violated the agreement on hundreds of occasions and Lebanese forces have been slow to deploy in southern Lebanon and slower to confront the terror group. The IDF is therefore making plans to delay its withdrawal by at least 30 days. Lebanon, for its part, has accused Israel of more than 800 violations and Hezbollah has threatened to resume its attacks on the Jewish state and its soldiers. (You can read about these developments here.)

Even on the Syrian front, which has been relatively quiet, there are worrisome signs. The IDF is continuing to capture and hold new defensive positions in Syrian territory, and in incidents not generally reported in the media, they have confronted Islamist militias that have come dangerously close and shots have been fired. Given the enormous uncertainty less than a month after the Islamist HST group took over Syria from Assad, it’s entirely possible Israeli troops will face attacks in the coming weeks.

Second, the IDF has not, in fact, succeeded in providing all front-line soldiers with the full array of gear they need to be as safe as possible. While the army has invested heavily in procuring equipment and has addressed many of the shortages that plagued it earlier in the war, it has not yet met its own standards for what soldiers should be given. Drones, for example, are widely understood to be crucial for detecting threats such as ambushes or the planting of roadside bombs. The IDF generally considers one Evo 4 drone (or equivalent) the minimum for a combat company in a war zone, but in a brigade deployed in Gaza with which my team works closely, most companies don’t have a drone. The same is true in a brigade we are working to supply in Lebanon, and we have good reason to believe the situation is comparable in many brigades stationed in dangerous areas.

Moreover, the army has not come close to meeting the higher standards adopted by civilian groups. For example, IDF-issued helmets made before 2005 have consistently failed to stop any of the five bullets shot at different parts of them in a standard ballistics test, whereas the high-quality helmets made in recent years block them with near-perfect consistency. Private initiatives such as ours therefore consider it imperative that every combat soldier have a first-rate helmet manufactured using the current technology. The IDF’s official position is that army-issued helmets produced as far back as the late 1970’s are fit for use, and this stance is not just theoretical: to cite one case among many, 11 infantry soldiers fresh out of training camp were sent to join an infantry battalion in Gaza recently with old, army-issued helmets dating from as far back as 1984.

Given that tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are in harm’s way and the IDF is not yet able to provide the necessary protection, the actions of private groups can mean the difference between life and death. Two weeks ago, a squad of Givati reconnaissance soldiers used a surveillance camera our team had given them to discover and neutralize a Hamas cell planting a roadside bomb on a route in Gaza frequented by vehicles carrying IDF soldiers. A few days later, three soldiers from another infantry unit in Gaza, to which we had not yet supplied cameras, were killed by a roadside bomb. I’m haunted by the possibility that if we had managed to provide these threat-detecting tools in a timely fashion, these three young men might still be alive.

The day will come when the war ends and perhaps before then, the IDF will succeed in equipping all our troops properly. As soon as one of these happens, I will be delighted to exit the gear-providing business and focus on other ways of helping the Jewish state thrive. Until then, it is dangerous to declare prematurely that we have accomplished our mission. Instead, we must act in accordance with a principle the IDF has inculcated in every patriotic Israeli: You don’t leave soldiers in situations of danger if you have a way of helping them. For those of us who care deeply about our brave defenders and have the ability to assist them, our work is not yet done.