Israeli soldiers attending the funeral of a 20-year-old colleague looked bewildered and exhausted.
Many sobbed, so too did strangers, stunned by what their country is going through.
Staff Sergeant Lavi Lifschitz served in the Givati Infantry Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.
The 20-year-old, from Modiin, was killed in action on Tuesday, the IDF said.
Hundreds of people filled his funeral at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery on Wednesday.
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Lavi Lifschitz (centre)
His friend who served alongside him wept as he looked haunted by the gravity of the moment.
“The situation is crazy. We’ve never witnessed something like this,” he said.
“We’re just kids. We don’t know life…These days are the toughest I’ve been through,” he told me.
A friend of Lavi Lifschitz described the pain of losing him
Among the crowd was one man on crutches. He didn’t want to be identified, but told me he’d been in a battle in Nahal Oz kibbutz and had tackled Hamas face-to-face.
“We fought there for about four hours or so and there were maybe 20 or 30 Hamas against us? We’re only five and somehow we survived,” he said.
He said he was convinced they would win the war too.
“I think we have every means and moral justification to win it,” he added. But they all know there could be a heavy loss of life.
The IDF says 15 soldiers were killed in ground operations on Tuesday. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any possibility of a ceasefire.
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