Residents from heavily Jewish populated Boca Raton pack house for solidarity event

Editor's Note: For the latest news on the Israeli-Hamas war, please see our live updates file here.

BOCA RATON — Hal Klein, a resident of Boca Raton, wasn't surprised by the notifications that began to ping on his phone last weekend, signaling that rockets were headed toward Israel.

Klein and many others in Palm Beach County use the Red Alert phone application to stay updated on threats to their loved ones in Israel, and such alerts are commonplace during the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hamas — an Islamist militant group that operates in Palestinian territory, in opposition to Israel — often fires rockets toward neighboring Israel before the Iron Dome, an air-defense system, intercepts the rockets and allows Israel to return fire on the Gaza Strip, where Hamas operates.

But this time was different, Klein said. News began to surface that Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel and launched a brutal ground attack, infiltrating Israel by land, air and sea before killing more than 1,000 people in their own towns, neighborhoods and homes.

"I pulled up news from Israel and I was in a state of shock," Klein said Tuesday night during a solidarity event at Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton.

The Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County organized the event to show support for Israel and to offer attendees — many of them residents of Boca Raton, which has a large Jewish population — a moment to feel a sense of community and perhaps a sense of peace among the chaos.

Klein entered the synagogue with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders and down his back. The last time he wore the flag was during a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Like many of the attendees at Tuesday's event, Klein worried for his loved ones who are overseas, including a niece who serves in Israel’s military reserves. And the images that people are receiving in family group chats are worse than anything found in the news, he said.  

"Everybody I speak to in Israel knows somebody who's been affected," Klein said.

Boca Raton event takes a stand against terrorism after horrific attacks

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates to at least the 20th century, and the dispute — largely over claims to the Holy Land — is rooted in prebiblical times. A series of wars have killed and injured thousands of Palestinians and Israelis over the decades, with civilians often finding themselves in the crossfire.

But the recent attack, said Matt Levin, president and CEO of the local Jewish Federation, was the worst in his lifetime. People live in Southern Israel with the understanding that missiles will fly overhead, but the latest Hamas attack surpassed even their worst fears.

“They never expected they were going to pay the price of people barging into their house and killing an 84-year-old grandmother,” Levin said.

Attendees at Tuesday’s event took issue with popular descriptions of Hamas as a “militant group” formed with the purpose reclaiming Palestinian land. Visitors at the Israel solidarity gathering said Hamas can be described in one word: terrorists. Both the U.S. and European Union have declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization.

“Following our own 9/11, nobody supported Al-Qaeda,” said Laurence Milstein, regional director of AJC Palm Beach County. “When Paris was attacked, no one supported ISIS. Today, all people of good conscience, of decency, must stand with Israel and against the savagery of Hamas.”

The attack killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel and injured thousands of others, as of Wednesday’s estimates. The ensuing counterattacks have killed an estimated 1,000 Palestinians and injured more than 5,000 others.

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“Resiliency is ingrained in us,” Levin said. "Whether we are here in Boca Raton or walking the streets of Tel Aviv, we are one people. We will not be deterred from our culture and from our enduring connection to the eternal home, the State of Israel.”

Palm Beach County leaders: 'Stand strong' as Israel launches counterattack on Gaza

Israel’s response to the attack has been swift and unrelenting. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said recently that Hamas "will pay an unprecedented price” for its attack.

Since that time, Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip, leveling buildings, cutting off supplies to the region and amassing hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops near Gaza's border in preparation for a potential ground attack.

Hamas, which took dozens of people captive during the assault on Israel, said that it would kill a hostage for every bomb that hits Gaza without warning. And according to NPR, Hamas made unverified claims that Israeli airstrikes have killed hostages in Gaza, along with their captors.

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“We’re going to have to stand strong over the next few days, when you start to see stories about unfortunate deaths in Gaza,” said Boca Raton’s mayor, Scott Singer, addressing the crowd at Tuesday’s solidarity event.

“Not terrorist murders, brutal rapes and indiscriminate killing like we saw on Saturday, but, unfortunately, there may be damage — collateral damage — when the Israeli army tries to take out targets,” Singer continued.

He and other speakers on Tuesday pushed back on comparisons between the massacre carried out by Hamas and the counterattacks that Israel launched in response.

Jill Rose, the Jewish Federation’s chair, predicted during the event that world leaders would accuse Israel of launching a “disproportionate response,” and that’s exactly what happened the next day, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the bombing of civilian areas in Gaza a “massacre.”

“It is up to us, the diaspora Jewish community, to honor those murdered, maimed, raped and kidnapped by unendingly asserting Israel’s right to exist,” Rose said during the solidarity event. “The right to defend her citizens and the right of Jewish self-determination.”

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Every one of the approximately 1,000 people who signed up for Tuesday’s event had a connection to Israel, whether it be through family or faith, speakers said.

Throughout the one-hour ceremony, attendees prayed, held hands and affirmed their support for Israel. They voiced the names of loved ones affected by the recent attacks, and they lit candles in remembrance of those who died.

As the evening came to an end, crowd members sang "Hatikvah," the national anthem of Israel. They clapped and waved Israeli flags in the air, sharing in smiles and tears.

“Israel’s not some country that’s far away from here, that we have longing for, that exists in our prayers and is part of the literature we read in the news,” said David Steinhardt, the senior rabbi at B'nai Torah Congregation. "We are the people of Israel also. And so each death is a death in our own family.”

Anxiety high in Palm Beach County and throughout Florida after Hamas attacks in Israel

Boca Raton police officers joined private security guards in welcoming guests at the start of the event and directing traffic at the night's end. Security was tight throughout, amid heightened tensions locally and throughout the world.

Not long after the Hamas attacks, supporters of Israel and Palestine got into a heated clash in Fort Lauderdale, according to area media reports. And more than 30 students at the University of Florida went to the hospital after a vigil for Israel turned into a stampede when the crowd heard a loud noise and feared it was gunshots, though none were actually fired.

"I don't know about you, but I need to just exhale," Rony Keller, senior rabbi at Congregation B'Nai Israel, said during Tuesday's event. "I have been holding my breath since Saturday. I have been going through a roller-coaster of emotions, of utter shock and sadness."

Eventgoers in Boca Raton said they had an unshakable feeling of anxiety as their family members live under the constant noise of air sirens and hurried trips to their safe rooms in Israel.

Elaine Katz, a resident of Delray Beach, said during the event — while waiting in a long line to pass through metal detectors — that she learned of the attacks while watching television news, and that she immediately thought of her nieces, nephews and sister-in-law.

"It's horrific," she said of the phone calls with her family in Israel. "It's more than what they say on the news."

And a resident of Boca Raton, Gila Goldstein, fought back tears as she described the immensely personal connection between Israel and Jews in Palm Beach County.

"Every time a bomb goes off there, we feel it," she said. "We feel it here. We feel it in our hearts."

Giuseppe Sabella is a reporter covering Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at gsabella@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Hamas attacks: Israel solidarity event in Boca Raton draws huge crowd