Baltimore native Josh Eastman, now living in Israel and serving in the IDF, shares his thoughts on the fighting he saw in Gaza:
I saw lies. The world is already trying to fault Israel, telling everyone that civilians died here, and Israelis murdered there, But I was there. My feet were on the ground and I saw the truth. I saw that warnings were given, I saw the enemy that fought us. I saw the twelve year olds with missiles and RPGs strapped to their backs. I saw that it was with sadness and great anger Israeli troops saw the need to fire on people who crossed the red line, the danger zone which meant they saw us, and knew where they were. Old people mined with bombs, children armed with detonators, tunnels that opened in the ground to swallow soldiers of ours. I watched my commanders passing out all of our food to the children who were taken prisoner. I received the commands "closed to fire on the right" if our intelligence had reported civilians in the area. I watched us, more often then not, taking cover when supposed civilian positions fired on us from the right. Yet the world thinks it can bend the truth. We were not allowed to fire on schools. We were told not to loot. We watched in anger as our bombs, so as not to fall on large civilian centers, fell on our own troops, so that we could tell the world we were attempting to scare the enemy while limiting civilian losses. Yet they won't say that in the press.
