In a Belev Echad-sponsored mission in cooperation with Chabad on Campus, a group of IDF soldiers and veterans who were wounded in action traveled across U.S. college campuses in New York, the West Coast and Florida, where they met Jewish American peers and shared their experiences both as Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers defending their people and homeland.
Like most of his peers, Alon Elbaz, 20, was recruited into the IDF right out of high school at the age of 18. He joined the Golani Brigade and endured eight months of intensive training to become a combat soldier. Of 120 soldiers in his unit, he and another 7 were selected to be combat medics. After a grueling training period, his unit was deployed to Kibbutz Nir Am where they were charged with guarding the Gaza border and adjacent kibbutz.
Elbaz recounts his harrowing experiences on the fateful day of October 7th: “During my service in Nir Am, there were many times when terrorists attempted to infiltrate the border and plant bombs. It was practically a weekly occurrence that’s been going on for years, which was why no one could foreshadow what would happen on October 7th.
“After two months serving on the border, I awoke on Saturday, October 7th to my friend Harel screaming ‘Elbaz! Elbaz! They’re shooting missiles at us!’ We flew out of bed and saw missiles flying and exploding overhead. We ran for our lives to the shelter. After a few minutes, we received permission to fire back and starting running to an armored vehicle to return fire when we were informed that terrorists had infiltrated the base. We suddenly saw a swarm of terrorists so large that we couldn’t count them tearing through the security fence. As we ran, a rocket hit us from behind and we all went flying from the explosion. When we got back on our feet, I saw that my buddy, Yaron, had been wounded in the head from shrapnel. Yaron was lying on my commander’s knees, bleeding profusely from his head. I smelled his blood and burnt flesh. I grabbed a blanket, which was the first thing I saw, and wrapped it around his head to stanch the bleeding. By then, he’d lost consciousness.
“Simultaneously, the rest of my friends were shooting at the terrorists, and missiles and rockets were flying and exploding all around. Finally, an evacuation team arrived; we grabbed a stretcher and started running. Yaron’s bandage flew off his head, and blood started spurting everywhere, from his nose and mouth. I told the guys to stop running and stabilized the bleeding again until we made it to the ambulance where they performed a field operation right there and then. After handing Yaron over to MDA, I simply lost it, vomiting nonstop from the stench of burnt flesh and blood all over me.
“And then, it was back to the battlefield. Throughout the day, I worked blindly, treating fellow soldiers and wounded civilians who’d fled the Nova music festival and reached the intersection where we we’d set up a field hospital. There was no time to think, no time to breathe. It was just a matter of save lives, save lives, save lives. Stopping for even one minute meant that someone could die.
“At some point, an officer noticed that I’d also been wounded from shrapnel, but coated as I was with my friends’ blood and consumed in the frenzy of those hours, I’d been oblivious to the injury or pain. Eventually, I was evacuated to the hospital where they kept me for several days. During this time, the reality of all that had happened penetrated. The sights, the scenes, the murders and atrocities, the kidnappings, the physical pain of my own injury, the sheer horror of it all.”
In the midst of the shock, grief and mourning, Alon was approached by a delegate of Belev Echad who told him about the support that the association offers physically- and emotionally-scarred IDF soldiers and veterans. Over the past few months, he’s recovered from his physical wounds, but he still carries deep trauma. Part of his recovery journey, he says, is sharing his experiences with the international community and spreading truth in a world filled with lies and misconceptions.
“So many people view the IDF as aggressors, but it’s simply not true. We’re young men and women who are simply defending our right to exist, keeping our brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents safe. When they understand that military service is not about aggression or occupation, but about defending our own families—neighbors and friends, innocent women and children, senior citizens and babies—and that we’d so much rather be living in peace than carrying weapons, their hearts open. That’s why I’m here in the U.S. sharing my story with all of you.”
In the course of a 13-day campus tour between February 1-13, a delegation of IDF soldiers and veterans visited NYU, Brooklyn College and Queens College in New York; flew across the country to the West Coast where they met college students in University of Oregon, Oregon State University, University of Washington and Western Washington University; and then back to the East Coast to Florida International University; and the University of Central Florida.
Mike, a junior at Brooklyn College who’s majoring in Computer and Information Sciences, expresses: “I’m Jewish, but I pride myself on being liberal, and I always looked askance at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Meeting soldiers around my age who’ve been through so much in the past few months has changed my attitude, and I realized that this is not a fight for sovereignty but for the safety of innocent civilians.”
“Belev Echad’s campus tours are about sharing the experiences of an Israeli soldier, who’s the same age as American college guys, defending his people and homeland,” explains Shevy Vigler, co-founder of Belev Echad which sponsored the soldiers’ campus tour along with Chabad on Campus.
“When we meet others face-to-face and share our personal stories—which for me included losing over 60 buddies and getting very close to losing my life to Hamas terrorists—they are suddenly so much more accepting and willing to hearing the Israeli perspective, which is the perspective of truth,” says Osher Pardo, 21, another IDF combat medic who participated in the campus tour.
In 2021, Pardo joined the IDF with dreams of being a combat soldier, but after 4 months of training, was singled out to be a medic. On October 7, he awoke at 6:20 a.m. to the sound of a rocket exploding less than 300 yards away. He woke his unit members, and they all sprinted to the shelter, never dreaming that it was anything beyond ordinary rocket fire from Gaza.
Forty minutes later, they heard someone crying for help and opened the shelter door to find their two unit commanders, one with blood spurting from his brain and the other, white-faced and trembling in a state of shock. Pardo dragged them both inside the shelter, administered First Aid, and then joined his buddies who had engaged dozens of terrorists in battle. Bullets and rockets whizzed back and forth; the Israelis quickly ran out of ammunition, and at some point, Osher got shrapnel in his knee and collapsed to the floor.
Osher tried to retreat, but a rocket landed nearby and sent him flying, shattering his arm. Aware that the terrorists were closing in, he determined to evacuate his commander with his one free arm to a safer location. Exiting the shelter, they advanced 100 yards until they spied another 15 terrorists who hadn’t yet seen them, and with no choice, returned to the shelter.
“Shelters are meant to ward off rockets, not terrorists. They’re not bulletproof. You can’t even lock them,” Osher describes the hellish day. “We were stuck in a lion’s den with no ammunition and my commander dying in my arms. We knew that it was just a matter of time before we were killed or kidnapped. Outside, we could the terrorists laughing, and we could only imagine what was happening.
“After five hours of terror, we heard someone banging on the door, and we couldn’t know if it was friend or foe. Aiming the rifle with our last bullets at the door, we opened it, sure that our lives were ending right then. Miraculously, it was a fellow soldier who’d been wounded. He had a bullet in his leg, which I got to work treating right away.
“After 6 hours without water or air, we heard terrorists right outside our door, and I called my parents to say goodbye. I told them that I loved them, and that I’d tried my best to save lives. By then, the physical agony, anger and grief were so intense that we almost welcomed death to end the pain. From the peephole, I spied terrorists outside our room, moving door to door, shooting RPGs into every room they passed. It was just a matter of time.
“Somehow, we had a miracle, and they walked right past our door, apparently not realizing that it was a room at all. After 9 hours of excruciating pain and awaiting death or a miracle, a combat chopper arrived and eliminated 100 terrorists. With the help of IDF Special Forces, we escaped the shelter and were all evacuated to the hospital.
“That morning, we’d been 90 soldiers in our base in Nahal Oz. By night, we were only 25. We lost a lot of friends that day, but our commander did survive. In the hospital, I was approached by Belev Echad and I’m still in rehab, recovering physically and emotionally from the trauma. But most important, I’m here, representing my country and friends for those who didn’t make it.”
“This campus tour has been an eye-opening experience for hundreds of American students who joined the meetings. I don’t think there’s any better way of presenting the Israeli perspective to American college kids than through the eyes of their Israeli peers who, instead of going to college and earning degrees are, at the age of 18, 19 and 20, putting their lives on the line to defend their families and fellow citizens,” says Rabbi Uriel Vigler, who co-founded Belev Echad with his wife Shevy.
“Israel is always in the news, and especially since October 7th, there’s so much misinformation—and disinformation—that much of what American college kids know is simply false. They hear such a skewed, one-sided perspective of middle-eastern events that it’s only natural for them to develop negative prejudices. Meeting IDF soldiers and hearing real-life accounts is an eye-opener that restores Jewish pride to Jewish college kids who’ve been bearing the brunt of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments for the past years,” says Shevy.
Alon adds, “Allowing us to share our challenges, tragedies and victories with our American peers also enabled us to see, firsthand, what Jewish students in the U.S. deal with, and we appreciate their support.”