‘I Have to Go’: American Explains Decision to Fight Hamas ‘Animals’ in Israel

It was just before midnight on the last night of Sukkot when someone pounded on the front door of Yaakov Swisa’s Los Angeles-area home.

It was his sister-in-law. It was urgent. “In Israel, they’re starting the war,” she said.

Swisa didn’t believe her. “It cannot happen,” he recalled thinking. She had videos on her phone. He was hesitant to look at them. It was Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, and Swisa is a religious man. He looked anyway.

He saw Hamas terrorists in the city of Sderot firing on police, going door to door, firing on civilians. He saw videos of people running from terrorists hunting them at the Supernova music festival. It was morning on October 7 in Israel, which is ten hours ahead of California.

“I was in shock,” said Swisa, a 42-year-old father of five. “No, no, this is not happening.”

For the next two days, the 15-year veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces watched the death toll climb. He learned that his former roommate was murdered by the terrorists, as were several other friends, and one of his wife’s family members.

“I was starting to aggravate, and get crazy, and get nervous, and crying,” Swisa told National Review. “I’m talking to my wife. I’m saying, ‘I have to go, I have to go.’”

On Tuesday, he did. In the days after the Hamas attack, the Israeli military mobilized at least 360,000 reservists, many of whom had to return to the country from abroad.

Local outlets have reported on Israeli reservists around the U.S. — New York, Colorado, Florida — returning to fight. Swisa, who is now an American citizen, didn’t have any legal responsibility to join the war. But he felt a duty to return, he said.

Swisa said he loves his life in the United States. But “in the end of the day, this is my home. Israel is my home,” he said during a late-night call on Friday from a base near the Gaza border where he served for four years, and which was targeted by Hamas terrorists last weekend.

Swisa was born in Israel, but came to the U.S. in 2015 for a six-week vacation to visit his sister, he said. The trip ended up being permanent after he met the woman who is now his wife. They grew their family in California. He works in construction.

“I am very happy in the U.S.A.,” Swisa said. “If you ask me if I am going to be back and live in Israel one day, maybe, but I don’t see it.”

For two days after the terrorist attack, Swisa had “zero energy,” he said. He wasn’t bothering with simple tasks, like making his morning coffee or brushing his teeth. He couldn’t comprehend going through the motions with his daily routine — taking the kids to school, making estimates and sales — and watching events in Israel unfold on TV, he said.

He dropped the kids off at school on Monday. When he got back home, he cried.

“I called my wife and said, ‘That’s it. I cannot handle it. I have to go. If I’m not going to go, it’s going to affect my soul, my mind, my body,’” he said.

He called an agent to get a plane ticket to Tel Aviv. The agent said the next available flight wasn’t until Sunday, almost a week later. “I told her, ‘Only Sunday? No, no, no.’ And I start crying and yelling over the phone,” Swisa said. “And she’s Israeli, too. She starts crying with me. And she said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ And she made it happen. She called me at 5 p.m. She said, ‘I’ve got a spot for you tomorrow, 11:30.’”

Swisa said he paid almost $1,400 for the ticket. He also had to get permission from his higher-ups in Israel to volunteer to join the fight. It was approved while he was on the plane.

Swisa estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the people on the flight were Israeli soldiers returning to fight in the war. Most of them were young, just out of the military, he said.

He’s now back with the Gaza Division, where he previously served. Seeing the horror in photos and videos was hard, but seeing it in person — walking around his base where soldiers were killed, seeing the dead bodies and the bullet-riddled cars — was another thing, he said. He struggled to find a word in English to reflect the nightmare. The best he could do was compare it to Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights, times 20,000, “but real,” he said.

The innocent people who were killed, “they didn’t do anything. You want to fight? Come fight, army to army. But you are not an army,” he said of the Hamas terrorists. “You are animals.”

When the shock of his gruesome surroundings sunk in after a few hours, Swisa said he was able prepare himself for what is to come. He’s met some of the other soldiers, and they are building off one another’s energy, Swisa said.

“I have energy for another 100 people,” he said.

If and when the expected Israeli ground invasion begins, Swisa said he will serve on the Gaza border, aiding the ground soldiers. “When they come out, take care of them 100 percent. When they go in, take care of them 100 percent,” he said.

When asked if he is scared, Swisa got quiet.

“Not for me,” he said. “For my family, to be honest with you.”

Swisa said the videos of the Hamas attacks have shown the world just how cruel the terrorist killers are. Maybe for the first time, he said, people around the world understand. “They saw the video. They saw what happened. They saw, that’s not how you fight,” he said.

And Swisa is confident about what is going to happen next.

“They started it, we will finish it. That’s it. Simple,” Swisa said. “It’s just a matter of time. It will take time, but that’s it. I’m telling you, no more Hamas. That’s it.”