Israeli Explains What Life Is Like in Her Country Right Now

Virginia Allen /

Yael Eckstein and her family, who live in Israel, have heard rockets explode day and night for nearly two weeks. 

Eckstein, who leads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, lives near Jerusalem with her husband and four children. She says the most recent Hamas-Israel conflict has affected her family, and all of Israel, in a deeply personal way. 

“In the past 10 days, we have been living in our bomb shelters,” Eckstein says, adding: “Just today alone, for an hour straight, there were just rocket barrages on Israeli cities.” 

As president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Eckstein oversees a team that is providing humanitarian aid to Israelis. The organization has set up mobile bomb shelters across the country. 

Eckstein joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what life is like in Israel now and what America and the world should know about the conflict with Hamas. 

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Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript.

*Please note that this interview was recorded before Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire.

Virginia Allen: I am so pleased to be joined by the president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein. Yael, thank you so much for joining us today.

Yael Eckstein: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here with you.

Allen: You live in Israel, would you just tell us a little bit about what life is like on the ground there right now?

Eckstein: I think, on a regular basis, Israel knows that we’re surrounded by billions of Arabs in over 57 countries that want to wipe us into the sea. But there’s something about being an island of peace and serenity for Israel’s 9 million citizens, including 20% Arabs, that we live in coexistence, we trust our army, we trust in God. And we don’t feel day-to-day that tangible threat of being wiped off the map.

And the past 10 days, I think that has really changed. In the past 10 days, we have been living in our bomb shelters, over half of the country, with over 3,000 rockets being launched into Israeli cities. Just today alone, for an hour straight, there were just rocket barrages on Israeli cities.

The children haven’t been going to school. The elderly have been sometimes hiding under their beds because they can’t make it to shelters in time. And it’s really reminded us how Israel yearns for peace, prays for peace, but has no other choice but to defend ourselves so that we will still be here tomorrow.

Allen: Are you all pretty much hearing rocket explosions 24 hours a day right now? Is it mainly at night?

Eckstein: We’re hearing it 24 hours a day in different cities. The border towns with the Gaza Strip hear it 24 hours a day. Places like Tel Aviv, which are big metropolitan cities, where there are all the different embassies, and a very Western, modern city, hears it … maybe once a day, twice a day.

Sometimes there’ll be big barrages, but definitely the southern Israel cities, like Be’er Sheva, like Sderot, or Ashkelon, Ashdod. Anyone who’s been to Israel will know these cities as beautiful, coastal enclave with lots of culture and life. Those cities are now completely just living in their bomb shelter because of consistent rocket attacks.

Allen: Wow. And you have four kids of your own. What is this like for you and your family?

Eckstein: Well, this war is very different than previous wars. My children are between the ages of 5 and 15, and when they were younger, we were able to make up all sorts of games and tell them different things so that they wouldn’t be so scared.

It’s so different now with bigger kids, and also that more of Israel is under attack, because when they were younger, there were two differences. First of all, we would say, “Don’t worry, it’s only on the borders. We’re not on the borders. They can’t reach us. We’re safe.” And now … the terrorists have made it very clear that there’s nowhere in Israel that’s safe.

The second thing is that they were kind of protected in our bubble of protection when they were younger. And now my children have Instagram and are watching news. They’re exposed to everything. …

Today, I was having lunch with my daughter, and in the middle of lunch she looked out and she started saying the prayer. I said, “What’s going on?” And she said, “Mommy, there’re hundreds of rockets being launched right now at Israel.”

So, you have these “code red” applications that are going off all day. And at one point, my daughter was so nervous from it, 15-year-old going through their own things, and then knowing there are hundreds of rockets being launched at your country, not far from where you are.

And I said, “Why don’t you turn off that application on your phone for a little bit, so you don’t hear it all day going off?” And she looked at me and she said, “Mommy, there are people running to their shelters every time it goes off. Just because I don’t have to doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be praying for them and thinking about them.”

So, it affects the children in a very deep way, just realizing how vulnerable we are, and what a gift and blessing it is to live in Israel, but also what a challenge it could pose.

Allen: Yeah. Wow, wow. That’s a lot for any child, any 15-year-old, to be living through. It’s a lot for any person to be living through.

Now, I know that you’re interacting with so many individuals there on the ground. The fellowship does so much amazing work, so much humanitarian work in Israel. Tell us a little bit about the work of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Eckstein: The fellowship, like you said, is a humanitarian organization in Israel. We’re actually the largest humanitarian organization in all of Israel.

We focused on two different areas here in Israel. One area is security. In the past 10 years, thank God, we’ve built thousands of shelters that are being used right now. We’ve secured hundreds of different departments in hospitals, in harm’s way.

For example, in the last war, the NICU unit in Ashkelon, in southern Israel, was completely exposed and not sheltered at all, next to windows they were keeping these NICU babies. And so immediately after the previous war, the fellowship went in and built a shelter over the NICU unit. We’ve provided ambulance, first responders gears.

It’s amazing to see, firstly, … all of these items that we’ve invested in for the safety of the people of Israel, both in Jewish towns, but also in Bedouin towns, in Muslim towns, and Druze towns across Israel. Because when you have 20% of the Israeli population being Arabs, we want any citizen of Israel [to have] protection and the same rights as everyone else. So, the fellowship is there in every city in need, providing them with protection.

So, the first part is that, it’s amazing to see how this lifesaving aid that we’ve invested in over the years is really being put to use now and saving lives.

And then the second part is that we workers on the ground in every city in Israel, in southern Israel, [are] going house to house delivering food to elderly, who don’t have families, who have been living in their bomb shelters for 10 days. We’ve been bringing activities for special needs children who have been living in bomb shelters for the past 10 days.

Whatever we can do to help, both the first responders, the welfare department, and specifically, the children and the elderly, we’re there without any bureaucracy, without any waiting, literally packing the trunks of our cars and driving down, in order to provide some comfort to the people of Israel.

Allen: Wow, wow. I saw some of the photos online of those bomb shelters, about how big are they? How many individuals or families can fit in one of those shelters that you all have built?

Eckstein: Great question. So, there are lots of different kinds of shelters. And a lot of people have asked me, “Yael, you were putting down shelters under rocket fire. How did you do that?” So, there are some bomb shelters that are connected to people’s homes, and that’s for their family. And then in every city in Israel, there are public bomb shelters for people who don’t have bomb shelters. And that could hold up to 100, 200, 300 people.

And then what the fellowship has focused on is what’s called mobile shelters. Essentially, they’re made in a factory and they’re kept in the factory until war breaks out. And then once war breaks out and the Ministry of Defense sees the most at-risk locations, which means locations that are getting the most bombardment of rockets and don’t have shelters, we put these already-made shelters on a huge, special truck and place them exactly in those locations.

So that’s how the fellowship was able to place 20 bomb shelters within the first two days of fighting, under rocket fire, in exactly the locations that the Ministry of Defense recognized they were needed.

Allen: Wow, wow. That’s so powerful. Just meeting, obviously, such an immediate need, so, so quickly. As you all are going out and delivering food, setting up those bomb shelters, what are you hearing from the individuals on the ground? What are they saying about how they feel right now?

Eckstein: It’s terrifying. We’re just hearing so much trauma, so much PTSD. We’re seeing, as we’re driving down south even, we’re seeing rockets being launched and cars pulling over, mothers on top of their children, their children screaming, the mothers screaming.

And even in the bomb shelters, when you’re in the bomb shelters, you hear the booms really, really, really loud. And we know that there was a 6-year-old boy who was killed while he was in his bomb shelter by a rocket, that the shrapnel still got in. It was so close and so powerful.

I think that there’s really this feeling of, … on one hand, we are protected under God’s wings because it’s amazing to live in a country where you know that your government has invested everything to protect you. That’s why we have so many bomb shelters.

You look at the Iron Dome, it’s something like of Star Wars, that Hamas terrorists launched hundreds of rockets and the Iron Dome, within less than a second, flies up and … explode[s] them mid-air so they don’t land on the people.

So, on one hand, it’s really amazing to see how we have a country that stands for life, that invests in protecting life, whose priority is protecting innocent life, both in Israel and also in the Gaza Strip. But it’s very terrifying, the truth is, to see how we’re not dealing with another government, we’re dealing with another terrorist organization.

It’s an Israeli government, who’s held by Western standards, who holds ourselves by Western standards, and everything regarding protecting life, appreciation for life, protecting civilians. But we’re fighting a war where Hamas terrorists are firing thousands of rockets from on top of mosques, from inside schools, from inside residential areas. They’re building the rocket production facilities underneath huge residential areas.

I think what’s most terrifying to the people of Israel is how Hamas terrorists, somehow, have gotten the world to think Israel is the bad guy, as we are protecting ourselves and trying to specifically target the terrorists.

Instead of calling out Hamas for using human shields, for building their weapons facility underneath schools and mosques—I mean, … it seems like the world has been blinded and Israel has been left alone, which is why, specifically, the Christian support for Israel and millions of Christians who, no matter what government’s in power, no matter what lies they’re told, continue to stand with and pray for the people of Israel.

Allen: Yeah. So what would you want the American people, or the world for that matter, to know right now? To say, “This is actually the truth. This is what’s going on. This is what we’re facing.”

Eckstein: I think it’s important to recognize that Israel is a beacon of democracy and hope in the Middle East, a country of only 9 million citizens surrounded by 1.5 billion Arabs. Twenty percent of our population are Arab and receive the same benefits that my children get.

We, in no way, hate Arabs or have something against Arabs at all. We’ve made peace deals in the past year with any Arab country that was willing to make peace deals with us.

And I think what’s really important to realize is, … every single loss of life is a tragedy. Israel recognizes that, not only on our side, but on the Gaza Strip side as well. But you have to put blame where blame is due.

Israel left in 2005, the disengagement, took every single Jewish person out of the Gaza Strip, hoping it would be a beautiful enclave that would have tourism and prosperity. Israel invested billions of dollars in building greenhouses and all different sorts of things so that the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip would have an economy and they’d be able to live good lives.

And what happened as soon as we left, Hamas, the terrorist group, took over, burned down every single greenhouse, every single penny of what Israel invested so that they could have a good life, destroyed it. Took their own rivals, the Palestinian [National] Authority pushed them off buildings, killed every single last one of them. And that’s how we have a terrorist organization now holding the people of Gaza hostage.

So what I would want the people of the world to know is that, as they say, “Free Gaza,” the people of Israel agree completely and have taken lots of action and investment to make that happen. But it’s free Gaza from Hamas, from their own leaders that are using human shields and launching war. That’s just the opposite of seeking peace and hoping to live in coexistence.

Allen: Wow. Well, as you’re talking, it’s weighty, and it feels a little overwhelming. And we find ourselves asking, “Well, what can we do? What are the answers?” And I know, for myself, as a person of faith, as a Christian, and for those listening who are Jewish or Christian, we know in the Scriptures that the Lord commands us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. How would you encourage others to be praying right now? And how are you praying for your nation?

Eckstein: Well, it’s a wonderful question. Somebody asked me yesterday, “How do you see the end of this conflict?” And I said, “The truth is, right now, I don’t know.”

I don’t see how this could possibly end because, as someone said the other day, “Our enemies want to kill us and we’re not willing to die.” So, if neither side is willing to compromise, it’s going to go on forever. So, unfortunately, there’s no end that I could see in sight in the near future.

But the encouraging thing about that is that it forces me to turn my heart up to God. And I believe God could do anything, that God could perform miracles, that there could be peace in an instant in ways we never would have dreamed of.

I think that right now is the time when all logic fails, when all planning fails, when all thinking ahead seems impossible, it’s the time to turn our hearts up to God and to say, “You know what you’re doing, just bring that peace to Jerusalem.” And I believe from the peace in Jerusalem is peace for the entire world. If you can solve this conflict, you can solve any conflict.

I would encourage people to really continue to pray, to really continue to learn, not just to read things on social media or to look at pictures, because there are so many sad pictures.

The question isn’t, are people suffering? The question is, how can we stop people from suffering? What’s the cause of these people suffering? What’s the core of this issue and war? Who is fighting for peace and freedom and defending themselves while the other is a terror organization that’s trying to just bring harm to civilian lives?

There are answers there. And I think the more that the world gets educated, the more we’ll start to see some real conflict resolution in miraculous ways, from the hands of God, coming through in Israel.

Allen: For those who would be interested in partnering with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, how can they learn more? How can they support the work that you’re doing?

Eckstein: Thank you so much. The fellowship is very focused on those biblical mandates to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the poor. … We don’t invest in art or education, which are both wonderful things, of course. But our focus is on those biblical mandates of basic needs now to the most vulnerable, to the elderly and to the orphans.

So, if this is something that speaks to your heart, you can visit at ifcj.org. That’s www.ifcj.org. And there, you can learn about all of our programs, what’s happening in Israel. And you can follow me also, as I update on my day-to-day life, which is always exciting and interesting, @yaeleckstein on Facebook and Instagram.

Allen: Wonderful, Yael, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate you coming on the show.

Eckstein: Thank you, and for everything you’re doing.

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