Abraham is a pastry chef, but these days life has not been sweet for him. The 28-year-old was mobilized from the reserve two weeks ago to help Israeli military forces collect bodies in attacked areas near the border with Gaza.
There are still more than 300 people hospitalized and almost 50 in serious condition in Israeli hospitals and, among the dead, there are bodies to be identified. In a nutshell, Abraham describes what he has seen so far as “terrible” and “crazy.”
“It’s not normal at all, in every scene we encounter we see how violent they were, how they massacred children and babies,” he laments. And he guarantees that “it is no exaggeration. We saw everything, we were responsible for looking for the bodies.”
Abraham is one of many mobilized by Israel for this moment of conflict. The call was so broad that, on the streets of Jerusalem, it is not unusual to see young people in shorts and flip-flops with weapons on their shoulders.
The pastry chef who is now a soldier is located near the border with the Gaza Strip. He says that he has already tried Portuguese custard tarts, but in Israel, and as a warning he even comments that Israelis, like the Chinese, are good at “adopting” – and he says adopting, not copying – some recipes.
But today, baking is not what he has in mind. In fact, he has nothing on his mind and the future is not even a question.
“We’re not even out of here yet,” he says, “and there’s a lot we haven’t gotten to yet. We’ve been finding more and more bodies for two weeks.”
The future, once again, and especially the distant future, is not really a question. When he finishes the job he was called to do, “maybe I’ll have time to think about it.”
Maybe. Like all the other mourners in this conflict, Abraham does not allow himself to feel or think. “For now, he just works.”
Source: TSF
