Thursday afternoon, August 7
From Ashkelon we continued further down south (read closer and closer to Gaza!), to the city of Netivot.
The city is clean and beautiful and there are thousands of Jews living in Netivot, but like Sderot it is just too quiet. We make a brief stop near a supermarket, and though it is a Thursday afternoon, a day before Shabbat the huge supermarket is almost empty. The kosher pizza shop is also almost empty of customers, mostly if people come by, they take a pie and go back home with it.
I understand why this is so when I overhear a shopper comment to a store clerk that it is nice to actually finally see other people. The store clerk responds with "ad machar baboker" -until tomorrow morning. (The 72 hour cease fire is over at 8a.m. tomorrow morning and no one has a hope that Hamas will continue to honor it.)
Netivot, like Sderot , lives indoors where in cement rooms people cower for their lives as air raid sirens keen and wail, warning of oncoming rockets.
Galaita Kshaun lives in Netivot. A few weeks ago Galaita lived in Netivot with her husband and three children and they were expecting their fourth child. Now Galaita, who is from Ethiopia, lives in Netivot with four children and no husband, Bayhesain Kshaun was killed in Israel by Hamas terrorists who emerged from a tunnel and attacked.
I visited Galaita today, together with some other people who were supporters of Chabad Terror Victim project. She was holding Tal Ohr who is just eight days old today. Tal Ohr will never know her father. Galaita was sad and tired and looked so hopeless, she told me that when she holds the baby there is somewhat of a comfort as Bayhesain knew they were having a girl. There were few words that anyone could say to this poor woman who would now be raising her chidren on her own without the support and love of her husband, a fallen hero in Israel.
Sadly from Galaita's home we visited the home of the Biton family. Maidan Maimon Biton was just 20 years old. I ask his mother to tell us what he was like and for the rest of our visit she keeps repeating over and over what a happy person he was and how happy he made others. Maimon's father Menachem is a gentle man and Ricky his mother is a woman with a positive spirit. It is easy to see how his personality was formed. Ricky's message was very clear, she wants everyone to know what he was like so that he can be remembered not just in Netivot but all over the world wherever there are Jews who care.
Ricky holds precious a picture that was brought to her by the Rav of Netivot. A picture that was taken just before Maimon was killed. A Chabad Mitzva tank had arrived outside of Gaza and soldiers were putting on Tefillin. Maimon put Tefillin on as well and someone took his picture. Moments later enemy mortar fire killed Maimon and three others in that attack.
Ricky is grateful for the picture. She says she always knew her son was special. He was always polite and never made demands, but now she knows he was also special in the eyes of G-d.
Ricky made this visit easy for everyone. She spoke of her son with joy and urged us to never forget him.
A week ago both of these slain soldiers, Bayhesain Kshaun and Maidan Maimon Biton were details, albeit painful details in a painful news story I followed back in the states. Today I got to know them personally and met what is left of them in this world.
May their memories be blessed.