Operation Protective Edge

On June 12th 2014, three Jewish Israeli boys were kidnapped. Their names were Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah.

 Israel responded with Operation Brother's Keeper, and arrested hundreds of Hamas members. Ten Palestinians were killed in the operation in the exchange of fire between the forces. In response, terrorists started to launch rockets at an increasing rate from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. On the second week of Operation Brother's Keeper, Israel was under rocket attacks on a daily basis, but luckily most of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome is a missile defense system. It was developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Currently Israel has nine Iron Dome missile batteries throughout the country.

The bodies of the Israeli boys were found on June 30^th, and on August 20^th Hamas officialsfinally admittedthat Hamas's military wing wasresponsible for the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teens.

OperationProtective Edge officially started on July 8^th 2014. It was a military operation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) inside theGaza Strip. The operation ended with a temporary ceasefire that lasts until today.

The operation started as a responseto thecontinuousrocket attacks from the Gaza Strip towards Israel that started because of Operation Brother's Keeper.

At first, the operation mostly consisted of heavy bombardmentsby the Air Force, Armored Corps and Artillery Corps, as Israel suffered heavy rocket attacks and terrorist infiltrations that came from the Gaza Strip by sea and through underground tunnels.

The second phase started on July 17^th, when Israeli forces began a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip in order to find and destroy the underground tunnels the terrorists used to get into Israel.

The third phase started on August 5^th, all the IDFground forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip but the fighting went back to the first phase, where there were aerial attacks.

During Operation Protective Edge there were 12 attempts to reach a ceasefire that were mostly accepted by Israel but rejectedby the Hamas.

After 50 days of fighting a ceasefirewas signed.

At the beginning of the operation a number of Iron Dome batteries were spread throughout the country to protect its civilians.During the operation 4,594 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel, of which 735 were intercepted by the Iron Dome, 64 fell in residential areas, 188 of them have failed and fell inside the Gaza Strip, and 3,607 fell in open areas. The IDF attacked 6,231terror targets in the Gaza Strip, 10,590 buildings were severelydamaged, 4,024 houses were completely destroyed and 32 terror tunnels were destroyed.

On the Israeli side 67 soldiers and fivecivilians were killed, and 1,620 soldiers and 837 civilians were wounded. Onthe Palestinian side, 2,203 Palestinians were killed during the operation, out of them, between 1068 and1408 terrorists were killed and over 11,000 Palestinian citizens were wounded, and over 200 terrorists were captured by Israel. In addition, dozens of Palestinians were executed by Hamas because they collaborated with Israel. Between 300 thousand to half a million people were left without a house.

I don't live near Gaza Strip so I didn't hear many sirens, in fact the only sirenthat we did have was at 3am, but my cousins that live near Beersheba had many sirensand they had to run and find a shelter in order to stay safe. I couldn't go to visit them as I do every summer.

My uncle is a military doctor inthereserves. Even though is already in his 40s, he has to do a longer reserve service because he is a doctor. During Operation Protective Edgehe got called to build a temporary cliniconthe border. He told me that they could see the rockets before they heard the sirens, and when they saw a rocket they had to lay down, cover their heads with helmets and put on a blanket, and just pray that they wouldn’t get hit. After a while he came home for his son's Bar Mitzvah that was partiallycanceled because of the security risk. After that the army realized that they are demanding too much from a 40 year old guy that is the official doctor of his kibbutz and the area and is a father of 4 little kids,he was too needed in his own life.

Every summer the Scouts have a summer camp. All year long we wait anxiously for and prepare for the camp which is the big closing eventof the year. This year was supposed to be a bit different for me because it was my last year at camp before I become a Scouts counselor. But because of the security risk our camp got canceled. We were very upset because we had already prepared structures that we wanted to build and we even bought the food but the camp was canceled atthe last minute.

The whole world covered Operation Protective Edge from both sides involved in the conflict. Most of the world was against us, blaming us for being the mean occupiers of the Gaza Strip, saying that we killed them unstoppably and bombed innocents in an inhuman way. The social networks were filled with hate towards Israel and the media was full of pictures of the dead bodies in the Gaza Strip, showing lonely, confused kids and houses turn into dust. On the Israeli side the world saw the amazing Iron Dome in action, but you could only see it from a few miles away. Although the IDF was asked to have a reporter join every unit that wentinto the terror tunnels, they refused. If they would have agreed the world could have seen the Israeli side and the IDF's actions might have been viewed differently, and then perhaps the world might have understood us better and maybe would have even supported us.

Most of the spotlight and the mess it created was caused from the biggest celebrities that had to pick a political side, and most of them supported the weak- the Palestinians. Although most of the social networks were against Israel and #freePalestine was always one of the most talked subjects on Twitter, there were a few celebrities that supported Israel and had to deal with negativecomments. The most prominent was the late Joan Rivers. She was an amazing ambassador for Israel that always protected us with sharp but exact words. Unfortunately, she died recently when something went wrong during a routine operation.

Israel, unlike the Palestinians, had problems explaining its goals and actionsto the world and this is why they think we are the occupiers of the Palestinians.

Culture In Israel

Just because I live in Israel, most of you probably think I probably listen to Hebrew music, that my favorite TV show is filmed in Tel Aviv and my favorite movie is in Hebrew and about Jewish culture. Well, this is not necessarily true. Most of the people I meet and talk to from around the world are very surprised to see that I also listen to Taylor Swift or Coldplay, that we watch the same TV shows or that my favorite movie would probably be Pitch Perfect (great movie by the way, go and watch it if you haven’t before). Yes, Israel has developed its own culture over the years, but since everything is just one click away, and words like cool or ok are as common as “Shalom” (hello in Hebrew), especially we the teens in Israel are very exposed to different cultures around the world.

But we do still have our own culture. Israel is a country of Diaspora. In our almost 67 years of independence, many people came from all over the world, and it affected the culture of the Israeli society very much. In the fifties, right after Israel's independence, came almost overnight 650,000 Jews! It was the size of the Jewish population in Israel before 1948!

During that time, because many people came from countries from all over the globe, they started mocking the people who were different from them. That is how a new genre began; it is called “Bourikas Movies.” These movies are still loved until today. They are comedy movies that show how life was like in Israel 60 years ago. The movies are much extruded and mock all the immigrants that came to Israel.

The Israeli music has changed very much during the years too. There are a lot of new singers and bands discovered all the time. In Israel we have the X Factor and The Voice, but we’ve also made our own reality singing shows and the most famous one was also sold to the United States, it is called Rising Star.

Israel has many theaters and movie theaters that put on new shows and movies every single day. We have Operas and ballet, drama and comedy, different circuses from all around the world. Israel is a place with different cultures, but yet we do have our own culture.

Israelis made many new and different inventions. We made a lot of progress in agriculture, have you ever tasted a Cherry tomato? Indeed, it was invented in Israel! New kinds of watering systems and new kinds of fertilizer are also Israeli inventions.

The ICQ, if you remember- it used to be a chat room that was very popular at the time, and even a disc-on-key, which we all use a lot, those technologies were made in Israel. Also, a lot of military equipment like the Iron Dome or a pilot-less airplane. Israeli inventions are used daily around the world, even here, even now. 

Israel Defence Forces

The IDF- Israel Defense Forces, also known as Zahal, is the national army of Israel.

Until 1948 the British had a mandate over Israel- known as Palestine. The Jews in Palestine those days wanted to fight the British and defend their selves so they made underground organizations called Lehi, Hagana, Palmach and IZL- Irgun Zva'i Leumi and fought the British (mostly with terror actions). On May 1948 David Ben Gurion- Israel's first prime minister, declared on the establishment of a Jewish State and on the next day the just established state of Israel was in a war against the Arab states surrounding it. David Ben Gurion knew that Israel would need an army to defend itself so he united the underground organizations into one army that fought for Israel. Until today this army is still called the

Israel Defense Forces.

The IDF is an army of humanitarian. When there are crisis around the world like the earthquakes in Turkey and Haiti or the last occasions in Nepal, the IDF sends extraction units and medical assistance.

The IDF is one of the only armies around the world that requires women to compulsory military service. Since 1948 women have taken a great part of the IDFs' actions. Women serve in the army is usually shorter than the men's- 24 months compared to 36 months. Married women won't serve in the army and so do pregnant women or mothers for a child, the reasons for that are both religious and conscience.

For equal rights, in the year 2000 the Knesset made a law that said that women can take any part in the army- administrative roles and even combat roles.

My grandparents from my mothers' side had a very good friend (they met because of him) called Isaac Ogen. Isaac served in Submarine force, on a Submarine called INS Dakar. INS Dakar was a British submarine that was sold to the Israeli army. In 1968, on its' way to Israel the submarine disappeared. There were no survivors.

My grandparents lost one of their closest friends. They wanted to name their first child after him but it turned out that the child is a girl' so they wanted to name their second child after him but it was also a girl. My grandmother told me that she thought that maybe it just wasn't meant to be. My mom met mu dad a few years later, then she introduced him to her parents. My grandmother told me that she was so thrilled when she heard that my fathers' name is Ogen. I've heard that story a lot, I think that for my grandparents it's a little gift from fate?

Could be.

In about 3 years me and my friends will wear our uniforms and go to the army. For about two years, only at the age of 18, I will go to the IDF to learn how to and to protect Israel.  When I'll go to the army I want to go to a unit called IDF Spokesperson's Unit. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit is the unit that keeps in touch with the public and the media. The unit gives out all the official announcements and when there is an operation or anything like that the unit needs to speak to the public, calm them down and tell them what to do or not to do. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit basically explains the IDF and its' actions to the world. I don’t want to be the head of the unit and be the official IDF speaker, but I do want to do my serves in that unit. I want to be a part of the Embassy and IDF and Israel advocacy. So this is where I want to be when I go to the army, and why.

I go to the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. There are a lot of special and different things about my school, one of them is the Military School- kids in between the ages 15-18 chose to move out of their home and go to a school far from home. To get into the school they needed to be at great physical shape and had to do a lot of try-outs. For three years they go to a regular school and regular classes but they have extras: they live in the school, they have a lot of fitness trainings and they learn how to read a map or how to plan military operations. This school is very special and experiential then when they go to regular service, they usually get better jobs because of the studies in a boarding school and the preparations service.  

Cities In Israel

Cities And Places In Israel 

Haifa

Haifa established in the third century. Haifa is the third biggest city (by population) in Israel. There are 273,177 citizens in Haifa, mostly Jews but also Muslims, Christens and Buddhists. It is a combined city, all religions live there in peace. On December there is a big Festival called "the Holiday of Holidays". The Holiday of Holidays Festival started in 1993 and happens every year. The Festival celebrates the Holidays of the 3 biggest religions in the world: Chanukah for the Jews, Chrisms for the Christens and Ramadan for the Muslims.

In Haifa there are the Baha'i Gardens, it is the second most religious place for  the Baha'is in the world.  It has 19 symmetrical gardens that took years and experts to plane.

Haifa has a port and the Carmel Mountain, Carmel forests, hospitals, malls, clubs, pubs, and education centers for every age, street parties, an underground train, Festivals and youth movements. It is a very involved and diverted place, a lot of tourists come to visit every single year.

The mayor of Haifa is Yona Yahav, serving his second term in a row.

In 1912 the Technion has started being built and in 1924 it officially became a university. The Technion is the Israeli Institute of Technology, it is a public research university that focuses mostly on engineering and specific science but also on medicine and architecture. Currently there are 12,832 students and 1,350 staff.

The Technion established originally in Hadar neighborhood, but in 1953 it moved to Neve Shaanan and was called Qiryat HaTechnion.

When the Technion started teaching there was an argument about what language should the studies be taught in, German- because most of the material was in German and also it is an international language, but as a university in Israel especially when Hebrew was a new speaking language some said that they should teach in Hebrew. Eventually the Technion is teaching in Hebrew.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It is holly for the Jews, Muslims and Christens as one.

For the Jews it was the capital of their kingdom since King Davids' days, there was the holiest temple for the Jews in the tenth hundred BC that was destroyed by Babel. The temple was rebuilt in 19 BC and destroyed again in 70 AD.

Today, all that's left is just a wall from the surrounding wall of the temple- the Western Wall. The Western Wall is the holiest place for the Jews all over the world. 

The belief is that if you write down a wish and put the note between the rocks of the Western Wall then god would hear your wish and it will come true.

In 33 AD Jesus was crucified in Calvary, outside of Jerusalems' walls.  Many tourists come to see Jesus' last road, his crusade, through Jerusalem.

People believe that in 610 AD Muhammad did his trip from Mecca to the Temple Mountain where he went up to the sky and disappeared.

Jerusalem is very important for those religions, which makes it a very sensitive place, there are many fights in Jerusalem over the holy places and between extreme believers.

In 1947 the UN offered to divide Palestine to an Arabic country and a Jewish country, and offered that Jerusalem will be international, but both sides disagreed to that offer. In 1948, when Israel was officially declared, David Ben- Gurion said that Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel so it can't be international like the UN wanted it to be.

Jerusalem did was diverted to Israeli territory and Jordan territory until 1967.

In 1967 the Arab armies that surrounded Israel decided to attack Israel, in six days Israel conquered Ramat Hagolan, Sinay and united Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is the biggest city in Israel with 829,863 citizens.

The mayor of Jerusalem is Nir Barkat.

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. It is 427 meters under ocean-line. It is called the Dead Sea because the water is too salty for anything to live there.

We produce many medical and cosmetic products from the dead seas' salt and healing mud. Those products are being sold all over the world, making the Dead Sea one of the most known and touristic places in Israel (after Jerusalem).

But as much as the Dead Sea is precious and special it is even more special to me.

Every year my whole family comes from all over the world: from the Negev up to Haifa, from Canada and the United States to South Africa, and we all go to the Dead Sea to celebrate the Seder together.  It is always a fun weekend and we wait all year to meet up. We play games or go to the pool or the beach, and on the last couple of years we started doing a trip of climbing to Masada at sun-rise, it is a very beautiful view.

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv established in 1909 and first was a neighborhood called Ahuzat Bait. The neighborhood grew and became the first Hebrew city.

Today Tel Aviv is the second biggest city in Israel with 418,590 citizens.

Tel Avivs' mayor is Ron Huldaee.

Today Tel Aviv is the main entertainment center. It has all the highest buildings, concerts, parties, beaches, restaurants, malls, the biggest airport, a port and most of the international embassies.

There are a lot of arguments about who should be Israels' capital? Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? I think it should stay Jerusalem because if we will choose Tel Aviv it will show that Jerusalem is not as important to us as it really is, although Tel Aviv is our most international and open city. Tel Aviv is the most excepting city for the gay community.

Tel Aviv for Israel is basically like New York City for the United States, it is one of the most important, fun, international and excepting city, yet it is not the capital.

The Negev

The Negev covers 60% of Israel’s territory. It is the biggest yet least populated area in Israel. It is so because the Negev is a desert.

Even though the Negev is a desert, we were able to make the desert bloom. Today there are many crops growing in the Negev.

David Ben-Gurion, Israels first prime minister, truly believed in settling the negev. That is why he helped building Kibbutz Sde Boker and lived there and insisted to be buried there after his death.    

Beer Sheva is the biggest city in the Negev. It is the seventh biggest city in Israel with 199,334 citizens.  

Tzfat

Tzfat is one of the four holly cities in Israel (along with Jerusalem, Tiberias and Jericho). Tzfat has always been a main place for the tora studies and great rabies.

There are profs that there were Jews in Tzfat since the Iron Age. Since then there have always been Jews in Tzfat. My great grandmother lived there with her family when she was a child and her father was a great Rabi in Tzfat.

Tzfat is known as the capital of the Upper Galilee.

The mayor of Tzfat is IlanShohet.

Tzfat has 32,901 citizens only. It is one of the smallest cities in Israel. 

Democratic Israel

Democracy: [dih-mok-ruh-see] Spell Syllables-

Noun, plural democracies.

government by the people; a form of government in which thesupreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by themor by their elected agents under a free electoral system. (dictionary.com)

Israel is a democratic country, every resident of Israel over the age of 16 gets the right to vote and weelect our prime minister and mayors every few years. Wealso havea parliament, calledthe Knesset, andits membersvote and holddiscussions about new rules and regulations. On March 17th anyone in Israel who is over 18 years old will have the right to vote for the new Knesset, for us it is so obvious, but if you'll ask someone in Syria about their "democratic" elections, you will find that there is nothing democratic about them. We don't think about it that much, but we have the right to think what we want and to say what we want! If a journalist thinks that somethingthat a minister said was wrong, theycan say it without being executed, in most of the Middle East people can't even dream about that kind of freedom! The fact that I, as a young woman, get the right to say what I want, to be equal, to be educated, and in a few years get to vote, to get a license and go down the street wearing whatever I want, some may say that it's wrong, but in Israel- we can! 

Israel, as the country of the Jews, was even democratically elected. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan that was formulatedto divide Palestine into two countries, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews.  Thirty-threecountries votedin favor, 13 against, with 10 abstentions and Thailand was absentfrom the vote.

In fact, Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. Most of the countries surrounding us are either republicans or monarchists. Which means that while our government has to make decisions that will make its people happy, our neighbors can to make decisions according to what they want or need, and hopefully, they will think about what isbest forthe country they rule. That is why the Arab Spring- a series of riots in many Arab countries in the Middle East in order to rebel and overthrow the dictatorial regime in these countries, happened between2010 and 2014. Many Arab countries became freer for their civilians afterwards.

The fact that Israel is one of the smallest independent countries in the world, especially in the Middle East, affects us very much. We are just a little dot that can be exterminated if we won't be united. If most of the Jews in Israel will not be pleased with the government they will emigrate to the United States or Germany (something that is happening because of the cost of living in Israel), and the more Jews that will emigrate, the less Jews will be left in Israel and after a while we will lose ourmajority and Israel will become another Arab country in the Middle East, making the Middle East a completely Arab zone.

We cannot to give up on Israel because it is the only Jewish country in the world. There is no other place in the world where Jews can be Jews without suffering from anti-Semitism.

Israel is 22,072 sqkm, and almost775 Israel can fit into Russia almost 775 times - but Russia is the biggest country in the world so it's not that big of a deal right? Well, it fits into France29 times and into the state of New York six times. The Palestinians want Israel, the only Jewish country in the world, to become Arab because they need a place to live, but next door there is Egypt- an Arab country. Well, one Egypt is just like 45 Israels, and still they claim they have nowhere to live in.   

This is why it is important that Israel is a democratic country in the Middle East, especially because of its size.

Who Am I As a Teenager In The Israeli Society?

 Hello my name is Shani Jacob, and I'm 16 years old from Haifa, Israel. I go to the Hebrew Reali School, and I'm a counselor in the Scouts. I have one little sister who is 10 years old and a dog. When I was asked to define what it's like to be a teenager in Israeli society, I could not find only one answer. Is it going to the mall or the beach? Is it being in the Scouts? Does it mean knowing Jewish history and how to speak Hebrew? Or, does is it mean knowing all about the politics and diplomatic relations in the country and the region? I believe that being a teenager in Israel is indefinable. It should mean being active in many ways - it could be knowing all about Israeli history, being in theScouts or going to Karate lessons.

But one of the most important things for an Israeli teenager is knowing what is happening outside of your neighborhood, or city, and outside of Israel, because for being such a small dot on the map, we do get a lot of public intention. Just in the last 15 years- my whole life, Israel had been through a war and seven operations inside of Gaza Strip. Every mother in Israel says to her baby that when they will grow up, we will not need an army anymore and all the wars would end, and we will live in peace with the Palestinians and our Arab neighbors. But in three years, my friends and I will wear our uniforms, and we will learn how to fight, and we might even fight, to protect ourselves. Every kid in Israel knows that one day he or she will go to the army.

In high school, every kid has to volunteer and do something for Israeli society. It can be packing food for people how can't afford to buy their own food, helping theelderly, or little kids, being a Scouts leader and working the youth, or anything that you might be interested in that would help improve Israelis’ lives. We are taught that helping others is as important as studying math or history and sometimes, it's even more important- we are taught to be good human beings before we are taught to be intellectuals. My volunteering is being a counselor in the Scouts, as I said earlier. It is very hard and requires a lot of time and attention, because twice a week I get my group of eight, 10 year old girls to teach important values through games and having fun. I have to deal with all the drama and different characteristics of the girls, but seeing them every single week, anxious for the activity to start, it is all worth it. I know that one day they will become amazing Scouts’ counselors on their own, and they'll remember their fifth grade scouts counselor- me, they might remember the advice I gave them or the trip that we had, or a specific game or story. At the end of the day, it is all worth it.

I see how Israel is showing itself to the world every single day. I've been abroad, seen Anti-Semitism first-hand, and was asked about politics and technology in Israel. The media says we are the occupiers of the Gaza Strip and that we kill Palestinians and start wars- this is not true. Since when has protecting ourselves become violence? Iswanting one land where we can be who we are and feel safe so wrong?

These are things that I, as a teenager in Israel have to deal with almost every single day, because I live in Israel, and am proud of it.