<\/p>\n
An American woman who watched in horror as Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack unfolded felt compelled to take action \u2014 and has been saving lives now for nearly three years.<\/p>\n
Adi Vaxman, founder and president of Operation Israel, told CBN News she started her organization in an effort to help protect Israeli servicemen and women.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mission is to save lives of the sons and daughters in Israel that are fighting for Israel\u2019s existence and indirectly for, I feel, our existence as the free world, and the Western world, and for American values and Judeo-Christian values,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaxman, who is Jewish, said she felt called to action by \u201cdivine intervention\u201d and signs from God.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that, on Oct. 7, I always believed in God and my faith was always important to me,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I would say that since Oct. 7, it had become not just a lot more important to me, but also a more central grounding force in in my identity because I\u2019ve just been given sign after sign that this is what I\u2019m supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The terror attack left Vaxman in shock, especially considering her personal history. She was a paramedic in Israel during the 1990s and had responded to many terror attacks. Yet what unfolded that day left her stunned as she grappled with unimaginable evil.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it showed the true face of the enemy that we\u2019re all dealing with as as a Judeo-Christian society \u2014 as a free society that values life,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s something that every American, every Jew, every Christian, everybody that believes in that way of living needs to understand that we are all fighting as a society that is kind of a bigger, bigger mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaxman recalled sitting at home on October 7 watching the horror unfold from afar in America. She recalled feeling as though she would die if she didn\u2019t take action and respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a close friend that was locked in her safe room with her kids stuffed inside closets for 26 hours, and we stayed awake and texting with her the whole time, trying to figure out where she was,\u201d she said. \u201cMy brother\u2026 was rushed to the front lines. He\u2019s a reservist. He\u2019s still serving. He\u2019s still fighting nearly three years later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaxman said she immediately knew she needed to take action, so she did just that and started sending protective gear to Israeli soldiers to help them amid the newfound battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t have ceramic vests,\u201d she said of the soldiers. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have helmets. They were literally fighting with thousands of terrorists that have endless weapons and endless ammunition with no protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wanting to solve that problem, Vaxman called a friend who once worked for the Israeli purchasing delegation of the Ministry of Defense. She immediately received information on suppliers of ceramic vests approved by the Israeli Defense Forces and started reaching out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bought everything they had in stock that night,\u201d she said, noting she used personal and business credit cards. \u201cAnd I had no idea what I was doing in terms of like, how was I going to pay [this] back? I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The total sum that night was $162,000, yet Vaxman didn\u2019t flinch. She was undeterred by the number and just dove right in, operating on pure survival instinct. Vaxman said she had no time to second guess herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it was do or die, really,\u201d she said. \u201cAll I could think about was, \u2018Do, do, do or you will die.\u2019 That was my only the only thing in my head was pure survival instinct of, \u2018If I don\u2019t do something now I will just collapse into myself and die.\u2019 I have never in my life \u2014 and I\u2019ve I\u2019ve had a rough life and I\u2019ve had a lot of painful things happen to me \u2014 but I have never in my life felt so helpless and in the amount of pain that I was in that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was the roots of Operation Israel, an organization Vaxman founded to help soldiers on a more permanent basis. So far, she has raised over $12 million and has touched the lives of 127,000 soldiers, providing defensive gear, equipment, and technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never, never ever touch anything offensive,\u201d she said. \u201cWe do not provide weapons or anything related to offensive gear. Everything that we do is defensive with the goal of saving lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaxman encouraged people to remember that Israel\u2019s military isn\u2019t paid and is all-volunteer \u2014 and people begin service at 18 years old, engaging an enemy that has \u201czero value [for] human life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in Israel, every person in Israel serves in the army,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the soldiers that are serving in the army are split into what\u2019s called mandatory service. They get drafted when they\u2019re 18, and \u2026 women serve for two years and men serve for three years minimum. And that\u2019s the mandatory service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaxman continued, \u201cThese are all children. These children don\u2019t deserve to come home in a coffin. They need to come home alive to their families, to their mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Find out more about Operation Israel\u00a0here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An American woman who watched in horror as Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack unfolded felt compelled to take action \u2014 and has been saving lives now for nearly three years. Adi Vaxman, founder and president of Operation Israel, told CBN News she started her organization in an effort to help protect Israeli servicemen and women. \u201cOur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[838,817,1155,1516,3185,3020,456,2277,3499,176,1113],"class_list":["post-31675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-action","tag-attack","tag-helps","tag-idf","tag-jumps","tag-lives","tag-oct","tag-save","tag-soldiers","tag-terror","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}