Israeli fighter follows in father's footsteps

Ido Frommer served in Gaza in 2005 when Israel pulled out

Ido Frommer reaches up high to pull a photo album from a book shelf in his home in southern Israel. The spine reads 2005.

"Ah, this is it," he says as he begins to leaf through.

Some of the pictures show a smiling blond 10-year-old - Ido's son, Avichai. He is photographed on holiday with the rest of the family skiing, or climbing an orange tree, or playing football. In one picture, he is goofing around in a white tutu.

"He'll be embarrassed by that photo now," Ido says laughing.

I can see in his eyes he's very proud of his son, who is now 28. He is on the verge of being deployed to Gaza with the Israeli Defence Forces to fight Hamas, which is proscribed as a terror organisation by the UK, US and other governments.

There's also regret in Ido's eyes. He was himself in the military in Gaza in 2005, and backed then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to pull Israeli troops out of the occupied territory allowing the Palestinians to govern themselves.

"It was a mistake what we did. What can I say to those 1,500 people that were murdered last week. It wouldn't have happened if we hadn't withdrawn."

I ask him if he feels guilty and his voice cracks as he becomes emotional.

"That's a tough word to use," he says. "But maybe it's the right word."

Back in 2005, Ido firmly believed things would be different in Gaza. But the following year the Islamists of Hamas won elections in the territory, sparking a brief civil war with their secular Palestinian rivals, Fatah. Hamas eventually took control. The Islamists had never accepted Israel's right to exist, and continued to attack the Jewish state, firing rockets and kidnapping soldiers and civilians.

Avichai Frommer is following in his father's footsteps

All this as Israel continued to build on occupied land in the West Bank. Israel later put Gaza under a blockade, and launched a number of ground offensives into the territory. After the recent atrocities by Hamas, troops are poised to go into Gaza once again.

When Ido and his son Avichai meet later in the day, there are hugs and slaps on the back. Avichai is all grown up now. His girlfriend is beside him, and he has a closely trimmed blond beard to match the full head of hair I saw in the photographs when he was a boy. His work as an engineer is now on hold, as he prepares to go into Gaza. A handgun sits in a holster on his right thigh.

'I never felt abandoned'

"I remember my father being away from home with the air force, but I never felt he had abandoned us. I knew what he was doing was important.

"Now what I have to do is important. There is no higher call, no higher meaning in life, than fighting pure evil. In the 20th Century it was the Nazis. Right now it's Muslim extremists. And we have to fight this ideology, for good to win and liberalism to win and for us to continue living the free life that we want to live."

The Jewish people were supposed to be safe in Israel. They believed there would be no more mass murder if they lived in their own land, after the unbearable trauma of the Holocaust. That's what helped spur the movement for a Jewish homeland at the end of the World War Two.

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But the Arab world did not accept the new state, with at least 750,000 Palestinians being forced to flee from their homes. Many ended up as refugees in Gaza, to make way for the new country. The legacy of that struggle for land, is what haunts the present day.

In Ido's bookcase is another family album, and as he turns the pages he points to the pictures of faces in black and white, staring out, every single one, murdered by the Nazis.

"My father is a Holocaust survivor," he says.

"His whole family was murdered by the Nazis, and we came to Israel and tried to live our life. I've always said what happened back in the 1940s would never happen again. But what we saw last Saturday is very similar. Killing babies, kidnapping people. It's horrible. I'm angry and sad, I'm grieving."

Ido is proud of his son, Avichai

As Avichai prepares to go to war, I ask him what his thoughts are for the innocent Palestinians, who had nothing to do with last week's horrific Hamas attacks, but who will inevitably die as Israel attacks Gaza.

"When the British people fought the Nazis in World War Two," he says, "they bombed Dresden and Berlin. It's a hard price, but I will not be extorted into losing 1,500 of my people because the other side is more immoral.

"If Hamas wants to prevent civilian Palestinian casualties, it must evacuate Gaza."

A father and son, joined by blood and now war. Two generations fighting the same on-going conflict. A battle seemingly with no end.