Each time I tried to film a 30-second set of the Kfar Gaza checkpoint or take a short phone call, everything was thrown off or interrupted by the almost constant booms of rockets being fired and often shot down by Iron Dome.
Although most of the Gaza corridor was cleared of the 800-1,000 Hamas invaders by Monday, on Tuesday rocket fire was running full speed ahead at the Gaza corridor I was visiting and later Tuesday even reached the Tel Aviv area for a short period of time.
Parallel to where I was on the Gaza side of the border, one close village is Kuba, while Shejaiya and Jabaliya were not much farther away.
The number of soldiers at the checkpoint varied wildly from around five to around thirty at any given moment.
Kfaz Aza was about a kilometer away, with Nahal Oz only a small distance past that. Both villages were major points of Hamas’ Saturday invasion and slaughter of at least 900 Israelis, mostly civilians.
Reports of another attempted invasion
As I was driving toward the checkpoint, there were reports that there was a new attempted small invasion of Hamas terrorists into Nahal Oz.
This seemed to be the reason why the IDF was generally not letting even media into Kfar Gaza and Nahal Oz (with the exception of two short 30-minute visits announced on almost zero notice.)
Nearly every 10 seconds more military vehicles were going in and out of the checkpoint to maneuver around the Gaza corridor to better comprehensively guard the area from continuing Hamas attacks as well as to start to prepare for the IDF’s imminent (within days to week and a half are the estimates) counter-ground invasion of Gaza.
To the right side of the checkpoint was Kibbutz Saad with dozens of soldiers guarding the gate.
There the main scene was civilians bringing additional food, equipment, and supplies to the soldiers.
IDF Logistics Commander Maj. Gen. Mishel Yanko said on Tuesday that broadly speaking soldiers were getting the weapons, food, equipment, and other supplies they needed.
But rank-and-file soldiers at Kibbutz Saad were talking about missing lots of items and were thanking civilians for filling in some of the gaps.
They said there was even internal competition among disparate IDF units to obtain certain items.
Yanko did admit that there were temporary holes in the distribution of needed items which was natural when the IDF had suddenly had to mobilize around 300,000 additional reservists on basically no notice.
Soldiers sure we will win, focused on the big picture
None of the soldiers wanted to discuss the intelligence failures which led to Hamas’ successful (for Israel disastrous) invasion of Israel’s South. Most wanted to just emphasize that the IDF would win the big-picture continuation of the war against Hamas.
However, when interjecting myself into some conversations between IDF soldiers and their visiting family and friends, there was some more frank talk.
Some soldiers talked about Iran having been deeply involved in Hamas’ invasion planning, strategy, and success.
This is not the position of the IDF high command or the coalition government.
Rather, top IDF and political officials say the Islamic Republic is always in the picture and is constantly encouraging Hamas and Islamic Jihad to fight with Israel, as well as providing funding, logistics, and training – but not that the ayatollahs gave any specific order for Saturday’s invasion.
Ghost towns
The scene surrounding getting to the checkpoint was confusing and eerie.
Besides the constant rocket booms, many nearby cities and villages, such as Netivot, were utterly empty on the streets.
Roads which according to GPS were supposed to be open, turned out to suddenly be closed by military personnel, forcing all kinds of additional maneuvers to get to the final checkpoint close to Kfar Gaza.
In addition, on the way out from Kfar Aza, new checkpoints had been set up to block people from entering some of the roads which I had succeeded in getting through just a bit earlier.
Also, at certain points, especially on Route 25, likely because of various IDF activities, various GPS cell phone applications no longer worked or temporarily went offline.
All along the way to and from the Kfar Gaza checkpoint, there were huge buildups of troops, tanks, and other attack vehicles.
There were also some comical moments where a man at a red light jumped out of his large van, decorated with a large Captain America style shield, to quickly give soldiers at the intersection cans of coke.