When I arrived at the Gaza Division’s war room on October 8, 2023, there were roughly 60 other soldiers and reservists already there. Men and women. Religious and secular. People from cities, settlements, kibbutzim and moshavim. From the right, center and left. It was the kind of Israeli mosaic you see most clearly in places and moments where our country’s resilience is tested: in the army, in hospitals, and after disasters and tragedies like October 7. 

Almost every corner of Israeli society was represented in the war room that day. Except for two that were barely represented. The ultra-Orthodox and Arabs. 

Those who were there came mostly from the same two Zionist communities that have largely carried the burden of defending Israel for decades: secular and religious Zionist Israelis.

When I left that same war room three months later, I told the reservists there something I still believe with all my heart: You are the Israel we need more of. Natalie from Ofakim. Amir from Givat Shmuel. Moriah from Gush Etzion. Oren from Tel Aviv. Each of them gave everything they had to the exhausting and complex work of managing the war in Gaza. And somehow, two and a half years later, many of them are still doing it. They’re still leaving their families and jobs behind and showing up when the country calls.........

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