Through all the commentary and saber rattling, the beating of chests and clutching of pearls, it is for too often forgotten that the real cost of this conflict is human.

On Nov. 10, 2023, barely a month after the 10/7 Massacre, IDF Maj. Moshe Yedidyah Leiter (z’’l), 39 fell in battle in the Gaza Strip.

There’s a little known rule/practice in the Israeli military, when an individual dies in the service, no matter their age, the deceased’s siblings are exempt from certain elements (or all) of military service – especially the dangerous ones.

Moshe’s young brother, Neriya, did not have to return to reserve duty after laying his brother to rest. But he did.

This past Wednesday, Master Sgt. Neriya Lieter (Neriya Dov ben Chana), was critically injured by a Palestinian terrorist who rammed a car into the reserve soldier at the Maccabim checkpoint near the Israeli city of Modi’in.

His father, Yechiel Leiter, formerly a member of Israel’s government and a soldier in its army, is Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. Prof. Leitner has served his country and his people for decades, and did so even on the tarmac, upon arriving in Israel after delivering an update about his wounded son.

Not far from where Neriya is struggling for his own survival following hours of surgery, his sister is holding her newborn baby, going into labor two weeks early after arriving at her brother’s bedside.

As the brilliant Israeli columnist Amit Segal so eloquently noted when sharing this story with the world, “The Leiter family’s story sits at the beating heart of this country.”

For how many nights must Israel be expected to have its heartbeat, fatefully, fretfully, and tearfully?

Thirty-three years ago, slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (z’’l) stood on the White House lawn next to President Bill Clinton and Palestinian Terrorist in Chief Yasser Arafat, and declared “Enough of blood and tears.”

Twenty-one years ago, Israel’s then Ambassador to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, wrote that Israel would leave Gaza to the Gazans as a “test case for peace.”

It’s sons and daughters laying in bunkers, hospital beds, and bomb shelters - Israel has not known a good night’s sleep since the fledgling state was founded.

Despite Rabin’s plea, Israel’s risks, and the numerous opportunities handed the Palestinians to simply live and let live, the Palestinian thirst for blood and tears remains unquenched. In fact, just this week, Israel’s Defense Minister announced that Israel was aware of Hamas efforts to reengage in kidnappings and similar tactics.

Eighty years of efforts by radical Islamists and Arab nations to wipe Israel off the map, and a half-century of the Islamic of Republic of Iran promising the same, and the boogeyman at this week’s UN General Assembly was…. Israel.

As the prayers of a family and a nation share a hospital in Israel, the world’s relevant commentary is nothing more than thinly veiled (if that) Jew hatred.

So how does an organization such as ours, built exclusively upon a moral foundation, engage with leaders, including our own here at home, who have decided they live in a post-moral existence? Put another way: how do a moral people defeat the immoral?

We likely won’t be able to tackle that in this week’s Action Update, but come what may, we take our guidance for God and men like Master Sgt. Neriya Lieter: We do the job He has put before us.

Please join us in praying for the Leitner family, and for the complete healing of Neriya Dov ben Chana.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund