ISRAEL – Moshe Nov has spent his life as an Israeli tour guide, so he knows Israel like no one else.
But he also knows the people of Gaza.
“I live close to Gaza, 20 miles from Gaza. The people who built my home were from Gaza. I talk to them daily on the phone,” Nov said.
He said 18,000 residents of Gaza were given work permits to cross the border every day and work in Israel.
“And earn, by far, more money than they can earn in Gaza,” Nov said. “They can bring bread home to their families.”
He talked to them every day and became close with them.
“They say, ‘Hey brother, hey cousin.’ We have excellent relationships with the people, not with the leadership. And we employed them until last Saturday,” Nov said.
Saturday was when terrorist group Hamas shot thousands of missiles that rained down on Israel.
“They go into a house, and they see a family of children and women who cannot fight. They are not soldiers. Soldiers, that I understand. But they pull a gun and shot those people or kidnapped them,” Nov said, describing the horrifying things that happened. “It’s totally beyond belief.”
Nov and his family heard the sirens and hurried to their bomb shelter.
“I’m going to walk with you, the same way we walk, but we walk it fast,” he said, holding his phone as he walked to the bunker.
Once the sirens sound, they have 30 seconds to get to a shelter.
“It’s not that far. The problem is you don’t have much time, and you can imagine what happens if you are asleep or you are in the shower,” Nov said.
New homes have their own bomb shelters, but families in older homes use neighborhood bunkers. Nov and his family had to walk outside to get there.
“This is the bomb shelter,” he said, showing a 7-foot by 8-foot concrete room with a fortified window and some benches.
“On Saturday, we spent here like three hours on and off. I had my granddaughter with me, and she’s age 2, so we brought her some toys. Her mother is pregnant and about to give birth in two months’ time,” Nov said.
His family was unscathed, but his neighbor was not.
“About two and a half miles from us, a house got a direct hit, and a woman was killed,” he said.
By Sunday, the day after the attack, he was attending a funeral for his friend’s granddaughter.
The 22-year-old woman was murdered during the music festival massacre that claimed more than 260 lives.
Now, day-to-day life involves precaution. Nov is one of the volunteers who keeps guard over his neighborhood.
“We take shifts,” he said. “My shift tonight is going to be from 10 pm to midnight.”
He and other tour guides across Israel are working together, using their trucks to offer services to those in need.
“We give missions. Like, we have a sick woman we need to take from here to here. We have a family to move from here to here. Whether it’s clothing for kids, toys, medicine, food, we bring it,” Nov said.
As he tends to his own people, he is holding space for the innocent people of Gaza, now affected as Israel defends itself from Hamas terrorists.
“We have nothing against the Palestinian people. I work with them together like family, and we respect them. People to people, we have no problem,” Nov said.
That’s why there is heartache for all the innocent lives being taken.
He prays for an end to hatred and the creation of space for full coexistence.
“When people meet people, everything changes,” he said.
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