On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah launched an unprovoked attack across an internationally recognized border against civilian and military targets in Israel, with a principle objective to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Israel’s prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, rightly called the attack an “act of war.” The initial assault – an artillery barrage into northern Israel – killed Israel Defense Forces troops who were patrolling near the border. The bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two soldiers killed in the attempted kidnapping, were returned to Israel last year in a prisoner exchange.
In all, 44 Israeli civilians and 121 Israeli soldiers died in the month-long war.
Hezbollah, with the backing of its patrons Syria and Iran, had successfully commandeered the southern Lebanon border region, from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2000. The region provided a vital security cushion, shielding Israelis from attacks by Lebanon-supported Hezbollah terrorists. Hezbollah exploited that zone in its unprovoked attack on Israel.
During the war, B’nai B’rith opened an Israel Emergency Fund, which supplied books to soldiers; computers for emergency shelters; bulletproof vests and helmets for emergency workers on the border; air conditioning units for bomb shelters; firefighting equipment to a school for children with special needs; and inflatable playground equipment for children to use as they huddled in bomb shelters.
B’nai B’rith is currently funding the establishment of a command and control center in Kiryat Shmona that will help the municipality cope with peace and wartime contingencies in the future.
Israel’s right to defend herself should never be in doubt.
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