The finale. Bring them home now.

Those of you following from the start (nine whole days ago!) will know that I came to Israel with plenty of intent but nothing that would remotely pass as a plan. I had a rough idea of what I’d do on day one and figured I’d just work it out from there. As luck would have it, the experiences I’ve had and the order in which I’ve had them couldn’t have been more perfect.?

I started broad, schlepping boxes in a distant carpark at Tel Aviv Expo. From there I moved to agricultural and kitchen work, where I began to interact with a handful of people who had been directly impacted by the events of October 7. The next layer in was the Nova site and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where I saw first hand the devastation that Hamas had caused, before bringing it home with my great aunt and returned hostage Margalit Moses and a tour of her decimated kibbutz, Nir Oz.

Each chapter became more personal and took me deeper and deeper into the Israeli psyche. While I marvelled on the first day at how resilient, pragmatic and ‘getting on with it’ the Israeli population was, by day eight I could see and feel the crippling wave of pain sitting just below the surface.

Hostage Square

It seemed fitting that I spent my last day of volunteering at Hostage Square, a large outdoor area set up in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Here, families of the hostages and their supporters gather around the clock amongst art installations, banners and regular demonstrations calling for their release. On November 25th, around 100,000 people rallied here to mark "50 Days of Hell" since the Hamas attack and hostage-taking.

I was given the job of ‘tunnel captain’, essentially ushering small groups of visitors through the claustrophobic replica of a Hamas terror tunnel that sits in the middle of the square. The tunnel itself is an art installation created by Israeli artist Roni Levavi.?

Etched along its walls are the names of the hostages as well as thousands of scrawled messages from family, friends and visitors who have passed through from around the world. The faint sound of gunshots play through small, embedded speakers, adding another dimension to the otherwordly experience.

Standing here for four hours in the rain gave me a chance to talk to hundreds of visitors from far and wide, as well as take some time to really ‘feel’ the city. I greeted school groups and tour groups, children and the elderly. I welcomed a party of 18 young ladies fresh in from Paris, each in a black hoodie with ‘we will dance again’ printed in small cursive letters on the front. I met what seemed like the entire population of New Jesey and saw groups of Israeli teenagers draped in Israeli flags.?

A lady approached me with her daughter and asked if she could hang a poster of her father inside. He’s 85 years old and the oldest hostage still in Gaza. What can one even say?

I looked around at the ‘women wage peace’ protestors who come every day between 430 and 6pm to silently demand the release of all hostages, no matter the price. I took in the tents set up around the edges where families of hostages sit, grieve and tell their stories to passers by who come to console them. I watched regular Israelis stop by after work just to pay their respects. I stared in disbelief at the giant table, set with 132 empty places, one for each of the hostages still being held. High chairs represented the children.

It took me a little over a week to realise, but the entire country is suffering from a level of grief and heartbreak that is unfathomable. Hostage Square is the emotional epicentre.?

Israel is a tiny country with an incredibly tight knit population. Everybody knows somebody who’s been killed or captured. Most people I spoke with knew many.?

As my shift entered its final hour, almost on cue, rocket sirens rang out. 11 rockets had been fired by Hamas directly at Tel Aviv, and I, together with the hundreds of others in the square that evening had 15 seconds to make it into the shelter of the museum.

Israelis are so used to this that everybody remained calm and knew exactly what to do, making it easy for me to just follow the crowd. As we waited for the sound of Iron Dome to shoot the rockets out of the sky and the ‘all clear’ siren to sound, a group of young girls in the bunker started singing.

Ve ha-ikar, ve ha-ikar,

Lo lefached, lo lefached klal

Ve ha-ikar, ve ha-ikar,

Lo lefached klal

Translation

But the main thing is to recall

Is to have no fear, is to have no fear at all

But the main thing is to recall

Is to have no fear at all?

Purpose

When I wrote my first piece on the way over I was clear that the three purposes of my trip were solidarity, volunteering and bearing witness. I’m comfortable to say that I achieved all three, and found a fourth along the way; Advocacy.

I had no idea what I’d be writing or how far and wide it might go, but in the nine days I’ve been away, my pieces have been seen almost 30,000 times on LinkedIn alone. I’ve received thousands of comments and reactions, as well as dozens and dozens of direct messages across every platform.?

Some of these messages have been from the exact people I would have expected, including close friends, relatives and prominent members of the Jewish community. But the vast majority of messages have come from people you might loosely call ‘colleagues’ or ‘acquaintances’. Clients I’d worked with 15 years ago. Former employees. People I’d met at random industry events somewhere along the way. Many messages were from LinkedIn contacts I’d never interacted with before or names and faces I couldn’t quite place.

Almost every message thanked me for what I was doing. People called it eye opening, insightful, enlightening, emotional and brave. Many asked specific questions about how I’d found different opportunities, managed the logistics and generally made my way around. People told me that they were thinking about coming over too and reading about my journey made it all seem a little more feasible.

As a lifelong supporter of Israel, I’ve always said that it’s completely binary. If you’ve been on the ground there, you instantly get it. If you haven’t, you never will.?

If anybody reading this wants help or advice about planning a trip over, please don't hesitate to contact me directly and I’ll do anything I can to assist. The Israeli people are without a doubt the toughest in the world. They’d never tell you directly that they need us over there right now, but they’ll certainly make it feel worthwhile if you go.

Bring them home now.

Am Yisrael Chai ????