95-year-old Israeli veteran joins war against Hamas
A 95-year-old Israeli veteran, Ezra Yachin, has returned to the battlefield to fight Hamas, which launched an attack on Israel on Saturday, triggering a full-fledged war. The New York Post reported that Yachin, who was earlier with the self-proclaimed Zionist terrorist organization Lehi, has become the oldest person to join the war. Yachin was recalled "to motivate the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) troops and to recount how he survived Arab pogroms in Jerusalem during his childhood," Israel National News reported.
British prevented Jews from immigrating: Yachin
Recalling his childhood days before the formation of Israel, Yachin said the British "prevented Jews from immigrating in many ways, and more than that, they did not prevent the Arabs who lived there from murdering the Jews." In a 2021 interview, he said, "The Jews in the land of Israel understood that they had to defend themselves...And so they set up the underground organizations, one of them being the Lehi organization."
British, Arabs slaughtered Jews: Yachin
He added that a day after the United Nations (UN) voted in favor of establishing Israel as an ethnostate for Jews, "Arabs killed and slaughtered entire families and murdered Jews everywhere." "It was essential to fight the British so that we would have a country with an effective way to defend ourselves against anyone who tried to harm us...We found ourselves in a very difficult situation with both the British and the Arabs rioting and mobilizing against us," he said.
Yachin's message: Don't give up
Lehi tried to ally with Nazi Germany twice
Lehi called its members terrorists and admitted carrying out terror attacks. Lehi was the last group in history to identify itself as a terrorist group. Professor Sasson Sofer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an Israeli public university co-founded by Albert Einstein, documented that Lehi fought the British in World War 2 and twice attempted to form an alliance with Nazi Germany. It proposed a Jewish nation based on "nationalist and totalitarian principles, and linked to the German Reich."
What is Israel's Reserve Army
Military service is mandatory for all Israelis aged above 18, except religious women, married persons, and those with disabilities. Both men and women are required to serve for at least 24 to 32 months. Those who have completed their compulsory service can be mobilized again for duty until the age of 40, the BBC reported. This enormous reserve contingent is called Israel's Reserve Army. The country has mobilized an unprecedented 3.6 lakh reservists for an offensive against Hamas.
