'You can't describe it': Tampa Bay area Jewish community reacts to conflict in Israel

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Around the Tampa Bay area, the Jewish community is reeling from the images and videos many are getting from loved ones is Israel. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said over the weekend that more Jews were killed in one day than at any point since the Holocaust. 

"I’ve seen bad things in my life, in my eyes, and that’s something that I’ve never seen before," Dean Gamili, an Israeli native said.

Gamili served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for three years before moving to the United States.

READ: US begins delivering aid to Israel as American death toll rises to 11 in Hamas attack

"Everybody in Israel has a close friend or a close friend of a friend, that something happened to them," Gamili said.

Gamili said he’s been in constant contact with friends and family over the weekend. He got the heartbreaking news that one of his friends was killed this weekend.

"My Commander from the Army, who was fighting in the Gaza Strip in 2014 in July, he just got killed by terrorists in one of the towns close to the Gaza Strip when he tried to help civilians get out of their houses," Gamili said.

He said the images and videos he’s seen are hard to watch.

"There is no one person who lives in the south of Israel, and even in the north of Israel, no one will tell you that they feel safe right now to walk around the streets," Gamili said.

And, images of Israelis being abducted by terrorists don't just hit close to home for some now in the Tampa Bay area – they are images from home.

"That such a breach of our border could happen, I haven't slept," Adi Halevy Arezzini said.

The Clearwater resident served in the Israeli defense force in the early 2010s. 

Now, Halevy Arezzini said many of her friends are being called up to serve once again.

"My grandparents were both in the Holocaust, both of my grandparents," she said. "And the fact that this is happening again, and it's not a story of yesteryear, it's a story of right now is appalling."

Many Israeli-Americans contacted by FOX 13 were too emotional to speak, while others wanted to hide their faces.

"It's so sad you can't describe it," said one Israeli-American who moved to the US in 1980. "I've been crying since Saturday."

Kfir Cohen of Clearwater lived in Israel until he was 13, near the Gaza Strip.

"One of my cousins just had a baby," said Cohen. "It's a one-month-old baby. The baby wouldn't sleep because of the bombs going up in the air."

Cohen says his family members have not been physically harmed, but they all know those who have been killed or kidnapped. He also said word is spreading in Clearwater of someone whose cousin is missing.

Israel was created to be a home to the Jewish people following the Holocaust, which saw most of Europe's Jews executed or forced to flee.

READ: 'Real possibility' US could be drawn into Israel-Hamas war, says analyst

"It's one thing to have an armed conflict or something like that, which has its own set of problems and is usually sort of has an unjustifiable aspect or aspect to it," said Jonathan Ellis, the chair of the Jewish Community Council. "But when you're dealing with something like this, this is just a slaughter. This is just going in and shooting women and children."

Rabbi Yossi, with the Chabad for Hebrew Speakers of Tampa, said it’s difficult to comprehend the brutal destruction. He said his family and friends in Israel are living in constant fear.

"Some of them leaving the country of fear, some of them thinking about like where we live, we live in Israel, or we live in a terrorist like countries," Yossi said.

The Jewish community in the Tampa Bay area is very tight-knit. Members of congregations around the area have been devastated over the last few days. 

"It tears me up inside, and there’s not a person, Jewish or non-Jewish, who I could not imagine it wouldn’t tear them up inside seeing everything that’s going on," Lee Tobin, a member of Congregation Rodeph Sholom said.

Tobin says he’s visited Israel several times, and is heartbroken to see the country become a war zone.

"One day I will have grandkids, and I hope they do want to go, and I hope there is an Israel for them to go to," Tobin said.

The Jewish community is coming together in prayer for the millions of people in Israel.

"What we have to do is to give support, to give love," Yossi said.