Many Israeli farms were left abandoned by the Hamas attack

The Fate of the Gazan Community: The High-Talled U.N. Humanitarian Forces in the First 24 Days of Gaza War

In the end, the resolution that passed on Friday, with the United States abstaining, called for “urgent extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” to allow for rescue and recovery efforts to safely proceed in Gaza, but it did not call for a full cease-fire, as many diplomats and agencies had hoped.

The strike that killed Mr. Al Mughrabi underscored the scope of Israel’s continuing bombardment of Gaza’s densely populated areas with heavy munitions, which U.N. officials have said is not only taking lives but making it nearly impossible to distribute aid.

Senior U.N. officials and many aid agencies have argued that a full cease-fire is needed to allow the distribution of aid to nearly 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, many of whom face spreading disease, hunger and an overwhelmed health-care systems.

The bombardment is killing civilians at a devastating pace, with the Gaza health ministry reporting about 20,000 people killed — a majority of them women and children — in the past 77 days of fighting. Bombings can often claim almost all of an extended family. Areas designated as safe for civilians have been routinely assailed by 2,000-pound bombs.

United Nations workers have been killed in large numbers. At least 136 people have been killed in the conflict so far, including UNRWA workers who care for Palestinian refugees and employees in Gaza. It’s the highest death toll recorded in the history of the United Nations.

An Israeli airstrike killed Issam Al Mughrabi, who had worked at the U.N. Development Program for 30 years, and his wife, his five children, and more than 70 members of his extended family, Achim Steiner, an administrator at the agency, said in a statement.

The Hamas Attack Left Many Israeli Farms Abandoned – Some worry forever: a crucial test for the reconstruction of Israel’s future

“All the sides can learn something from this situation,” she says. “It will take time” to rebuild the confidence and find a solution. “We have no other choice, you know?”

She claims that Israel had to fight to destroy Hamas in Gaza, where thousands have died since the beginning of the conflict.

Ilana Menache, in her 60s, is one of the volunteers — and she is indeed going for the low-hanging avocados. Her voice is clouded with emotion as she talks about the future.

Flynn says that trees that are weighed down will not be as productive next year and that will affect the price of fruit in Europe.

“We can pick a few in the next couple of weeks,” he says. We will have to give up on some of the people that we should have picked earlier.

Source: The Hamas attack left many Israeli farms abandoned — some worry forever

Paul Flynn, an Israeli farm worker in the area of Hamas attack, whose father worked at a Thai farm during the weekend of 2005

He oversaw about 40 laborers from Thailand. Flynn was at home on the Saturday when Hamas attacked. The Thai farm hands, however, were working. As Hamas fighters overran the area, the workers made a panicked retreat to a safe room on the farm grounds. They were there for the next day and were able to chase the militants off with an Israeli tank.

Paul Flynn was born in Ireland but came to Israel four decades ago. The supervisor is in charge of the orchards that were relocated from inside of Gaza in 2005, in order to allow for self-government there.

Not far from the dairy farm, an all-too-close Israeli howitzer intermittently lobs artillery into Gaza. A sandy road splits neat rows of avocado and orange trees, pregnant with ripe fruit.

The man is not Jewish, unlike Leff. He was in Israel to see a need before starting his new job back home. I heard about the terrible things that happened. I just wanted to lend a hand.

Source: The Hamas attack left many Israeli farms abandoned — some worry forever

New to the Gaza border, Gabel Leff says. “It’s a trauma,” says Willemse

As the cows are herded in for milking, Nathaniel Willemse, 21, confidently taps their hind legs, coaxing each animal into position above milking stations. He is studying law in the Netherlands. He once worked on a dairy farm, so the work here is old hat for him.

Leff sees Israel as a safe haven for Jews living in a troubled world. “Everywhere we seem to call home, at some point in time, we’ve been uprooted from,” he says. “When antisemitism rises, as it is currently, we always have somewhere to go. That’s been Israel for the past 75 years.

Leff wears a kippah, the traditional Jewish head covering, and sports faded blue jeans, a sleeveless t-shirt and the tall work boots required for traipsing through cow manure.

For many here, the decision to help comes from a sense of duty. Gabriel Leff, a 23-year-old from Cocoa Beach, Fla., certainly sees it that way. Moved to sympathy by the events of Oct. 7, he arrived in Israel two months ago and since then has been volunteering in various places around the country. He is new to the dairy farm.

“For the people who lived here, it’s a trauma,” Itzhaki explains. Imagine if someone had escaped from Auschwitz, you asked him to live there? It’s difficult.

Shmulik Itzhaki is a volunteer from central Israel. His day job is very different from dairy farming. He believes the survivors won’t ever return, given the horrors of the community, and so he’s happy to help as long as he can.

Eleven weeks since the start of the war, things on this side of the Gaza border are slowly getting better — although no one can yet imagine anything resembling normalcy.

After the October attack, it took Israeli troops five days to regain control of this area. The cows that normally get a daily milk weren’t left unattended. Many developed infections and more than 100 were too far gone by the time the army let anyone return. The animals were to be slaughtered.

About 38 people were killed by Hamas and another 75 were captured as hostages, according to Israeli media. Along with the nearby Be’eri, it was among the hardest-hit kibbutzim. Some members of these communities have already said they have no intention of coming back.

There is a group of volunteers who are rotating into this farm which is located close to Nir Oz, a kibbutz in Israel. She’s helping fill the gap left by the workers who are no longer here.

Aline has been volunteering at the farm for a few weeks and has learned to identify the modern warfare implements. Looking over, she points to an Israeli drone. Later, she notes the distinctive whoosh from a salvo of Hellfire missiles and explains that they are fired from Apache helicopters. She says that it’s familiar and you never get used to it.

Since Hamas fighters swept through this area on Oct. 7, killing or kidnapping a total of 1,200 people, Israel says, the bombing has become commonplace — even more so since Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city located nearly due west of here, has become a focus of the conflict.