Wounded Israeli Troops Yearn to Be in the Fight

An Israeli soldier is rushed to an emergency room at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, southern Israel's premier hospital. (By Uriel Sinai -- Getty Images)

Now large numbers of Israeli troops are back in Gaza, a territory that slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin once famously said he wished would "just sink into the sea." Israel has said it has no intention of staying in the narrow coastal strip over the long term, but intends to stay long enough to stop, or at least reduce, the rocket fire.

To Freda Kaplan, whose son was injured Saturday night, that is a vital mission.

"We're fighting for our existence," Kaplan said. "We'd rather this didn't have to be done. But this is a defensive war."

Her son had called after the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday evening to say that he wouldn't have cellphone service for a while, without elaborating why. Kaplan and her husband knew what that meant: He was going into Gaza.

"I felt a mixture of worry, pride and understanding that there was a job that had to be done," said Kaplan, who asked that her son's name not be published. Like other wounded troops, he would not speak for the record, citing military policy prohibiting soldiers from talking to the news media without permission. "If it's not my son, it will be someone else's son. So it should be all our sons together."

The next call came at 4:30 a.m.

Kaplan's son, a lanky and gregarious young man who wears a yarmulke, had been injured by shrapnel and was in the hospital. Kaplan drove through the night from their home in Israel's central coast to be at his side before he underwent surgery. The metal fragment that struck his forearm cut to the bone, but he was expected to make a full recovery.

"If he could, he would go straight back in," she said. "He's on a mission for peace."

The Soroka hospital is a modern facility of stone and glass, with a bust of Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, prominently displayed within a soaring entryway. Despite the chaotic scene unfolding just 25 miles away in Gaza, the mood in the hospital was calm. Israel was fighting a war, and everyone knew their roles.

Residents lined up in a hallway to give blood; there was no shortage, but medical officials wanted to have extra supplies just in case.

"When people see the wounded soldiers on television, they come here automatically," said Leo Rothschild, an official with Israel's paramedic service who said 170 people had donated by midafternoon.

Elsewhere, students distributed pastries, meticulously checking off soldiers' names as they made their rounds. Young men and women dressed in olive-green uniforms delivered bouquets of flowers to their friends and sat at their bedsides watching news coverage of the latest fighting.