Israeli tanks are firing at a regular rate near Sderot, in the south of Israel, against the Gaza Strip when a bus arrives with a bang, whose ultra-Orthodox occupants come out dancing. Their goal is to make their soldiers “happy” and victorious.
The contrast is striking between the colorful vehicle of the Chabad Hasidic movement, whose blaring sound system spits “that Israel is safe”, and the war scene unfolding below.
Six tanks, sheltered behind trenches dug on agricultural land, thunder their cannons with a deafening roar. Just behind a hill and invisible from the road, other machines relay them at high frequency.
Wine, candles and bread
The half-dozen ultra-Orthodox people, all dressed in black pants and white shirts, watch the spectacle with great joy. Just like the passenger in a 4X4 a few meters away, who takes a selfie with the tanks in the background.
“Good,” one of them shouts several times, as the ground shakes as the shells tear the air. Two of his companions then left to give small plastic bags to two soldiers who had come to meet them, who politely refused them. Inside, wine, candles and even bread to celebrate Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, celebrated from Friday to Saturday evening.
Bloody response
On October 7, hundreds of Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip attacked southern Israel during Shabbat, killing more than 1,300 people, most of them civilians, and taking nearly 150 hostages, which the Palestinian Islamist movement threatened to execute.
“In the Bible it is written that if someone has just killed, you must kill him first. (…) Now everyone understands it. It is a consensus, from North to South, right and left, that Hamas must disappear,” explains Levi Reinitz, of the Chabad, or Lubavitch, movement, one of the largest ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups in the world.
For Palestinian civilians, “life will be much better after Hamas,” continues the man with the full beard. The Israeli response, however, is bloody. Nearly 1,900 Palestinians, including 614 children, including many civilians, according to local authorities, died in the Gaza Strip, a small, poor territory, under siege and relentlessly shelled.
Gaza “in hell”
“We do not shoot at civilians, but at terrorists,” says a reservist soldier who refuses to give his name. While the Hamas attacks have stunned the entire Israeli population, the vast majority of whom support its army’s response, the ultra-Orthodox met by AFP seem to have little concern for the fate of Palestinian civilians.
The inhabitants of Gaza “can go to hell”, Avraham Levi told AFP, once the Chabad bus, nicknamed “Mitzvah tank”, had left, the mitzvah being a precept of Judaism.
“It’s revenge for all the things they did to us. For the thousand people they killed,” continues this tall, bearded 19-year-old. “No matter how many people we kill on their side, we are happy. »
“Everyone is religious”
On Friday, seven Chabad buses were active in the North of Israel, where Israel fears a possible attack by Lebanese Hezbollah, but especially in the South, where a major offensive by Israeli forces is announced. The one tracked by the AFP ended up delivering hundreds of bags of Shabbat food and equipment to a reservist, Yishai Cohen, in a nearby town.
“Their presence is really important,” said this soldier, himself religious, with a kippah on his head. While the majority of the ultra-Orthodox do not perform military service, which generates intense controversy in Israel, their dances, music and preaching “strengthen our spirit, make us happy, and recharge our batteries. »
His more secular comrades in arms share his feelings, he assures. “In combat, there is no atheism” in Israel, believes this civilian cook. “Everyone is religious. »