A Boston woman who was in Israel for volunteer work is back in the United States after escaping violence that broke out in the country last week.
“You’re afraid you are going to die,” Jewish National Fund-USA Boston President Rhonda Forman said. “You’re just afraid you’re going to die.”
Forman told 7NEWS she was still reeling from what she witnessed in Israel, where she was volunteering at a rehabilitative hospital just miles from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas fighters launched a series of attacks, including violent assaults on civilians and rockets being fired into the nation.
Left feeling numb after getting to safety, she said one of her fellow workers was killed in such an attack.
“On the road that I drove every single day, her car was hit by a rocket,” she said. “That hit me very hard personally because that Saturday morning, I would have been on the road at that sae time.”
Forman was north in Tel Aviv when Hamas launched its assaults.
“You hear the boom boom booms – Israel is not a huge country, you hear the [booms] all day,” she explained.
She and her husband were able to escape the war – an effort that took days.
“I was afraid – I was afraid and I needed to get out, I needed to get out, even though it was hard for me to leave,” she said.
Currently in Texas, Forman said the only thing she was thinking about during the attacks was getting back to hug her kids.
Now back in the United States, she is working with the non-profit she helps lead to get those still trapped in Israel and Gaza necessary supplies.
“Jew or non-Jew, we have to support Israel, we have to support keeping people alive,” she said.
The Jewish National Fund USA is hoping to use funds to meet the immediate needs for people on the ground, as well as temporary housing and care packages for those affected by the war.
More information on the cause can be found here.
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