Hezbollah has its own drones, which fly into Israeli territory to drop bombs on Israeli positions, so soldiers are asking for special protective netting.

By Asaf Elia-Shalev, JTA

As tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have shot up to new highs, Israeli soldiers anticipating being deployed to the north are increasingly turning for help to the civilian donation efforts that have kept them stocked in Gaza.

Adi Vaxman, who heads the U.S.-based donation effort called Operation Israel, fields requests from individual soldiers and says demand has spiked in tandem with security developments involving Hezbollah.

“With the situation up north, the demand has tripled in the last few days,” Vaxman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. She said the total requests by soldiers in September are on pace to reach double the roughly 15,000 requests from August.

Civilian volunteers have been working for weeks to better understand the unique needs posed by the intensifying conflict in the north, which is taking place across a different terrain than Gaza and against Hezbollah, a group with more advanced capabilities than Hamas.

After conversations with senior officers involved in military logistics, another civilian effort called the Discretionary Fund for Israel, which is led by Shalem College administrator Daniel Polisar, launched a $8 million fundraising drive earlier this month.

The dollar figure comes from a calculation of what gear is needed — and which kind of items the military has recently procured. Drones, for example, were one of the most requested items from donors for many months, but the military is now distributing them in large numbers, according to Polisar.

In a fundraising email, Polisar warned his donor pool that an escalation in the war was imminent and soldiers were not sufficiently supplied for what’s expected.

“I’m writing at one of the most difficult times Israel has faced since Hamas’s atrocities of October 7 precipitated a multi-front war,” Polisar wrote. “The evolving situation has created grave new risks for the brave men and women defending our country.”

Since the appeal went out, Polisar’s prediction has come much closer to reality. The Israeli cabinet has declared as a war aim the return of 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes by Hezbollah’s rockets.

Hundreds of pagers have exploded across Lebanon in attacks targeting Hezbollah operatives. Israel assassinated a top Hezbollah commander in an airstrike. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared Israel has “crossed a red line.”

And the Israeli military has redeployed a large fighting division from Gaza to the northern border.

Over the weekend, tensions escalated sharply. Israel battered Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon, including in Beirut far from the border and of a meeting of Hezbollah commanders who Israel said were planning an Oct. 7-style invasion of the north.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah sent dozens of rockets deep into Israeli territory, injuring several and sparking fires in populated areas.

Whether the conflict evolves to include ground fighting remains to be seen. But Israeli soldiers worrying that any effort to secure the north would necessarily include an invasion have continued to request basic combat items like helmets and ceramic plates for body armor as they have done in Gaza — and donors have begun adding other kinds of equipment as well.

The size of the battlefield in the north is larger than Gaza, which has been characterized by close-quarter urban combat. Drones must fly over longer ranges, which calls for different types of batteries and special antennas, according to Vaxman.

Hezbollah has its own drones, which fly into Israeli territory to drop bombs on Israeli positions, so soldiers are asking for special protective netting.

Weather is also a factor as winter months approach and temperatures drop, especially at high elevations. The uneven topography of northern Israel and southern Lebanon also makes it more difficult for the Israeli army to detect threats, which is why soldiers ask for special surveillance cameras.

Jews in the Diaspora who have been asked repeatedly since Hamas’s attack last October to help buy soldiers combat gear have largely responded with an open checkbook, but they have also expressed alarm about the implication that the military cannot supply itself.

Polisar received a wave of questions reflecting such concerns after his fundraising email and then addressed them in a follow-up message.

His email noted the immense scale of hostilities Israel is facing and praised military leaders for ramping up their purchasing to meet billions of dollars in equipment needs.

“Even so, there are certain critical areas in which the IDF has not fully succeeded in rendering our soldiers as safe and effective as possible in the short time horizons dictated by war-time conditions,” Polisar wrote.

“In a perfect world, the Israeli army would take care of everything, my team and I would not need to raise funds and purchase gear, and I would not be asking you to consider once again stretching your limited resources.”

In another possible sign of how serious the need for more equipment is, earlier efforts by the military to stop the flow of donations to individual units appear to have receded.

In July, the commander of Israel’s ground forces, Tamir Yadai, warned his troops about rules against accepting donations and threatened heightened enforcement. He also called for officers to inventory all donated supplies and confiscate equipment that doesn’t match IDF standards.

Yadai’s order had a chilling effect on donors, who feared that their contributions would go to waste, according to multiple fundraising groups.

Since then, however, Yadai has resigned from the military. And officers are not taking action to stop donations, according to the civilian aid groups.

The post Civilian effort to equip Israeli soldiers for war with Hezbollah ratchets up alongside hostilities appeared first on World Israel News.

2,500 ballistic glasses, 2,000 bulletproof vests, and countless other gear have been shipped to soldiers.

By Troy O. Fritzhand, The Algemeiner

Like most Israelis and Jews living in the diaspora, Adi Vaxman turned on the news on Oct. 7 to complete shock and horror. The scenes of Hamas terrorists rampaging across southern Israel — where they murdered 1,200 people and took 240 more as hostages — immediately seared itself into the Jewish psyche.

Vaxman, though, jumped into action to help her people, succeeding in the most remarkable ways with her nonprofit Operation Israel.

“I was traumatized and upset, but within 10 days [after Oct. 7] we had the nonprofit registered and everything was operating,” she told The Algemeiner from her home in New Jersey.

Operation Israel, which has raised more than $7.25 million since the war started, has been shipping essential gear to Israel’s soldiers fighting Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah to the north by the Lebanese border, and Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank.

Vaxman, a business operations consultant, said new ideas for the organization started immediately out of necessity.

“I had family members drafted to the army, but people reported to duty drafted or not,” she explained. In her case, helping to fulfill the desperate needs of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the early days of the war, woefully unprepared for the immediate call up of over 350,000 reservists to duty, was the top priority.

Operation Israel set up an online intake form where units could request exactly what they needed. “In the beginning, it was ceramic vests and ceramic plates, then different types of gear,” Vaxman said. “We were researching what to buy, where to buy it — can it be bought in Israel?”

Today, the organization is focused on more specialized gear such as “drones, special communication equipment, medical supplies, tactical protective gear, tents, heaters, and other items.

The resultant work has led Operation Israel to now be partners with specific units dealing with drone training and anti-terrorism — and the success the nonprofit is bringing the units is evident in the daily antidotes that come from the field. “The drones are saving lives, being flown into tunnels before soldiers … If something is blown up it is the drone, not a soldier or dog,” Vaxman said. She told one story from last week when 14 soldiers were saved after being stuck in frigid temperatures, keeping themselves warm with the blankets provided by Operation Israel.

Other stories Vaxman’s team has received are of soldiers whose lives were saved by the ballistic goggles they have been providing. “These are the stories that make it all worth it,” she said.

Currently, the organization has dozens of volunteers both in the US and Israel working around the clock to fulfill the needs of Israel’s frontline fighters. To date, they have shipped more than $7 million worth of gear — more than 66,000 pounds combined — to over 900 units, comprising more than 10,000 soldiers. This included 2,500 ballistic glasses, 2,000 bulletproof vests, 2,000 tactical sunglasses, 1,000 rescue blankets, and countless other gear.

The requests are not simple, and they come in daily. For example, some drones can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000, meaning sourcing the right gear is critical.

“I wish we didn’t have to do the work, but I am proud to,” Vaxman said. “God gave me a gift in my abilities to do so.”

One effect of the Israel-Hamas war that she did not expect was how it would impact her and her family, specifically as it pertains to long-term planning and where they would live. On Jan. 1, Vaxman was walking in the American Dream Mall in New Jersey with her husband, 16-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and her daughter’s friend. Proud of their heritage, her daughter was wearing an IDF jacket, leading hostile pro-Hamas agitators to approach her family and yell profanities.

“We started hearing all from behind us: Free Palestine, f—k Israel, f—k you bi—h, f—k you wh—e,” all directed at her daughter, Vaxman said. “My husband got between them and us, telling them to leave her alone, saying she is just a child.” However, the agitators continued the antisemitic harassment, cursing and threw her phone to the ground.

Vaxman, who was raised by Holocaust survivors, said the incident shook her daughter, who has been struggling since. “They were going at her in a vile, horrible way,” Vaxman said. The family submitted the video to the nonprofit watchdog group StopAntisemitism, which is active on social media, where the clip went viral. The watchdog found the main assailant, who claimed to be Palestinian in the video, although it turned out she was Hispanic.

“Until the attack it hadn’t crossed my mind to live anywhere else,” Vaxman said. “But the rise of antisemitism and the way it has become acceptable, I don’t know if we are going to be here.”

Antisemitism has skyrocketed to historic levels worldwide, including in the US, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.

At the same time, Vaxman’s kids have shown a deeper appreciation for their Jewish heritage, no doubt in part due to their mother, who said she was committed to working on behalf of the Jewish people and Israel, providing IDF soldiers with all their needs as they come in.

“I am never going to stop advocating for the Jewish people and Israel,” she said.

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