Yehonatan and Rochelle Cohen in Coral Springs. {Kevin Deutsch}
By Kevin Deutsch
An Israel Defense Forces soldier who recently spent weeks finding and destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza spoke about his experiences in Coral Springs Monday night alongside his American-born, IDF-veteran wife.
Yehonatan and Rochelle Cohen, who met during previous IDF service, fielded questions for an hour during a live question-and-answer session at the Chabad Jewish Center in Coral Springs. A crowd of more than 100 people, plus scores of live-stream viewers around the world, heard the couple describe the societal impact of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the realities of Israel’s Gaza operation, and their reaction to the unprecedented global surge in antisemitism happening in the wake of Hamas’s atrocities.
Hamas massacred some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 253 people as hostages on October 7. The terrorist group’s attacks included burning Israeli children alive, committing numerous rapes, and inflicting sexual torture and mutilation.
Israel responded with a ground operation in Gaza aimed at destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages. The military campaign has been accompanied by a global surge in anti-Jewish hatred that experts who study antisemitism call unprecedented.
“Israelis are just as shocked as you are at what we’re seeing around the world,” said Rochelle Cohen, who grew up in Maryland and emigrated to Israel to join the IDF after college. “The more we understand our history and how much hatred we’ve [experienced], that’s the only thing that explains it. There’s a deep, deep, deep hatred of Jews, and it’s always been there. We got really comfortable feeling like we’re like everybody else, and we’re not like everybody else [in the world’s eyes], and no one’s ever going to look at us like [we are], as much as they say that they are.”
Yehonatan and Rochelle Cohen in the IDF. {courtesy}
“I think the only thing we can do is get closer to your Jewish community however you feel you can because that’s going to be who’s with you, for your children and your children’s children,” said Cohen, whose grandmother lived in the Coral Springs area for several years. The woman’s funeral was officiated by Chabad Jewish Center Rabbi Yankie Denburg, who emceed Monday’s event with the Cohens.
Yehonatan Cohen, one of about 360,000 IDF reservists called up after the October 7 attacks, said his unit was recently operating in the middle of Gaza, in an area where Palestinian civilians had evacuated. Still, Hamas terrorists and their operational infrastructure remained. Inside terrorists’ homes, the soldiers found walls adorned with children’s posters of Hamas leaders, along with hidden caches of weapons.
“Our mission [was] every day to scan an area for Hamas or other terrorist groups’ infrastructure, meaning rocket launching pads, houses of terrorists, tunnels, [rocket-propelled grenades], hand grenades, guns, to finds and destroy all that,” said Cohen, who served about a month-and-a-half in Gaza following around two months of training.
Chabad Jewish Center Rabbi Yankie Denburg and Yehonatan and Rochelle Cohen. {Chabad Jewish Center}
Hamas has booby-trapped tunnel entrances with explosives, along with other lethal traps set for IDF soldiers, so Cohen and his unit destroyed tunnels from the outside. A member of the unit was killed when Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel and attacked. The dead soldier was one of at least 220 Israeli troops killed in Gaza during the current military campaign. Overall, at least 557 IDF members have been killed in the war since October 7.
Hamas’s elaborate tunnel network in Gaza is believed to span between 350 and 450 miles. Between 20 and 40 percent of the network has been destroyed or otherwise left inactive, Israeli officials estimate.
After getting the call-up to serve in Gaza, Yehonatan Cohen kissed his sleeping daughter goodbye and readied himself for life in a war zone.
“Morale was very high,” said Cohen, who left Gaza 11 days ago. “Everyone came [to serve] because they understood they need to be there.”
Speaking about the area of Gaza in which his unit operated, Cohen said: “You’re going into a place that’s full of destruction … The only people who are still there are Hamas terrorists” after civilians evacuated.
Both Cohens rejected claims of genocide made by anti-Israel activists and anti-Israel governments like South Africa’s—claims Israeli officials say are a modern-day Blood Libel. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Hamas purposely embeds its fighters and infrastructure among Gaza’s civilian population, leading to civilian casualties. The group was elected by Gazans in 2006 to govern the strip.
Since its founding in the 1980s, Hamas has been promoting rhetoric and policies aimed at destroying Israel and killing Jews around the world, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
“We’re not talking about a normal political group; we’re talking about a terrorist organization,” said Rochelle Cohen, who served as an IDF combat engineering instructor, teaching soldiers how to drive tank-like vehicles into battle.
“I don’t know how much choice the innocent Palestinians really have in being able to separate themselves from [Hamas activities],” she said. “The thing that we know is Israel didn’t want this war; we’ve never wanted a war, that’s why we were called the Israel Defense forces—not offense.”
“Hamas is putting their civilians in danger when they put their launching pads underneath the hospitals and underneath schools. We can’t say it enough. Unfortunately, the people are put in horrible situations [by Hamas] … the IDF has to do whatever it can to take away these terrorists.”
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