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Israeli Teens Facing Military Draft Say They Are Determined to Fight

(Washington Post) Rachel Chason - Yonatan Baba started his junior year of high school taking classes on Zoom as a security precaution after Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Over the course of the war, he said, friends of his have been killed or injured while fighting in Gaza. Last month, on the eve of what was supposed to be his graduation ceremony, Baba huddled in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, comforting a neighbor amid a barrage of Iranian missiles. Across Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jewish citizens above 18, a cohort of high school students who graduated last month will be among the next wave of conscripts entering the Israel Defense Forces - their views on Israel's place in the world shaped by fire. And now many say they are determined to fight. "We need to be ready to sacrifice ourselves and to protect our country," said Baba. While he has seen friends come home from Gaza physically wounded and withdrawn, he has only grown more resolved, he said, because "I don't want my kids to grow up in a place with rockets and kidnappings." Many young Israelis across the political spectrum saw their sense of security shattered in the wake of Oct. 7 and as a result have grown more hawkish, said Tamar Hermann, director of the Center for Public Opinion at the Israel Democracy Institute, which conducts regular surveys. "Young people, and especially young men, see themselves as part of the national war effort," she said. "They see the war as meant to guarantee Israel's security in the future." The IDF is getting more requests to join elite combat units. Elite units are highly competitive, with top students vying for front-line positions. Physical and mental tests start years before draft day. Shahaf Davidovich, 18, whose family evacuated their home in northern Israel after Oct. 7, when Hizbullah began firing rockets into Israel, will join the paratroopers in August. "Everyone knows that we are surrounded by people who don't want us here," he said. "We know that we want to contribute as much as we can to defend the only Jewish country that we have."
2025-07-13 00:00:00
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