Wounded soldiers visit Australia
"No matter how hard they hit us on October 7, we're going to get up and be stronger than ever," says Itay Sagy.
More than a thousand members of the Sydney Jewish community experienced an emotional night hearing heartrending but uplifting accounts of Israeli soldiers wounded in the service of their country at Central Synagogue on Tuesday night.
The event heard from injured IDF soldiers Yuval Fatiev and Itay Sagy, as well as IDF veteran Shimon Ben Ishay, who spoke on behalf of his injured soldier son Ohad, who also came from Israel for the event.
Israeli analyst Haviv Rettig Gur engaged in a podium interview with columnist for The Australian Gemma Tognini at the event.
Fatiev was seriously injured in the Givati Brigade in 1999. He underwent multiple surgeries and major rehabilitation at Beit Halochem. Developing PTSD, he continued receiving support and medical care from the organisation. In fact, the care he received has inspired him to begin studying medicine at Hebrew University.
He told an audience in Melbourne last week, “No matter how hard they hit us on October 7, we’re going to get up and be stronger than ever.”
Sagy thanked the Australian Jewish community, “For us now, it’s you guys, and it’s Beit Halochem.”
Ben Ishay related Ohad’s head injury for which he is still in rehabilitation, reflecting his son “is my best teacher”.
Rettig Gur noted Israel’s military is now a better fighting force than before October 7 and Israelis collectively feel a new endurance. “You have strength you didn’t know you had.”
The Times of Israel journalist said while there are some 50 Hamas casualties for every Israeli casualty, civilian deaths in Gaza have declined “much to Hamas’s frustration”, as garnering world sympathy is the terror organisation’s only gambit.
Iran’s regime has visions of an Islamic resurgence, he said, but Palestinians in the West Bank now have a “wait and see” attitude towards Israel. For them, the current war is the final test of a grand theory that eventually Israelis “can be crowbarred out”, as the French were from Algeria in the 1960s.
Co-existence will only come when Palestinians realise Israelis are indigenous, have no countries to return to, and are not removable, he said.
“Everyone who hates Israel now will hate Israel for a while,” he argued. “But we’ll remove Hamas.”
Rettig Gur also spoke at an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council media lunch in Sydney on Monday.
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