For the soldiers
Photo: Yaron Brener
Parents demand IDF evacuate south base
Families of soldier serving in southern base of Tel Arad want military to evacuate sons pending probe of spiked cancer morbidity on base. Fight, they say, is not against the army, but for soldiers
Dozens of parents to Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed in the Tel Arad Base in southern Israel staged a rally in front to the IDF's Kirya Base in Tel Aviv on Sunday, demanding Tel Arad be evacuated immediately.
The parents cited a report, suggesting that the rate of cancer cases diagnosed in soldiers who serve on the base, which is a Nahal training facility, is 2.5 times higher than that of soldiers serving in the Infantry Corps as a whole, as the reason for their protest.
"This isn’t a demonstration against the IDF, it's a rally for the soldiers," Sigalit Kessler, whose two sons serve on the base, told Ynet.
Kessler became the driving force behind the parents' protest, after a Channel 2 exposé reported on the base's morbidity statistics.
Parents protest in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yaron Brener)
"We’re not calling on anyone to dodge the draft, we just want our children to remain as healthy as they were the day they joined the army," she said.
"We're not speculating or acting on rumors. These are hard facts. The army would evacuate the base id they had a single report of cholera on it, why is cancer any different?"
Wielding power
Kessler also protest the claim the getting sick is "just" another hazard IDF soldiers must face: There are alternatives to the training facility's location, but not for a soldier's life.
"Being a combatant is dangerous, but there is a choice to be made here. If the chief medical officer were to say that he looked into it and there was no cause for alarm, than so be it, but this isn’t the case. If they know there's a risk, why keep exposing the soldiers to it?"
"Most of us have never been a part of any public fight," added Doron Goren, whose son in stationed in Tel Arad.
"After the story aired, we started making phone calls and chatting of forums and that's how we connected. At the end of the day, this matter is important to every parent in Israel. We were all soldiers once, or have kids in the service."
Goren, like Kessler, said the protest was not one against the IDF. "We have only one army and one country. We're not opposing anybody.
"I didn’t stop my son from going back to the base, and his motivation is skyrocketing. There isn’t one parent here that would tell their child not to join the military, but nevertheless, we expect the IDF to keep the soldiers healthy.
"We can't change the past, but we can change the present," he added. "They have to evacuate the base and run proper tests. As parents, we will continue fighting to get the soldiers off the base. It won't be a prolong struggle, but a short, focused one. We have a lot of power and we won't hesitate to wield it."
