Visiting grad student and Israel Defense Forces reservist returns home for battle
SAN FRANCISCO -- An Israeli exchange student's first-ever trip to San Francisco was interrupted by violence back home after the surprise attack by Hamas in his homeland.
Yuval Appelboim, a 26-year-old Israel Defense Forces combat officer reservist, has been called to fight for the first time.
He was supposed to spend last week studying the Middle East with students at UC Berkeley and Stanford. Instead, he attended pro-Israel rallies, connected with the local Jewish community, and tried to get a flight back to Israel as quickly as possible.
Appelboim managed to visit a few San Francisco landmarks and locations like the Golden Gate Bridge and Dolores Park before he flew to LA to get on a plane to Israel. He said he brought donated supplies like toothbrushes and phone chargers from Bay Area Jewish organizations with him back home.
He landed in Tel Aviv on Sunday, hugged his parents and his nephew goodbye, and left for the IDF base in northern Israel.
"We have a safe space a few meters from me, so if there's a rocket launched at us, we make sure to go to the safe space. This means we have to sleep with our shoes on, with our uniform on," said Appelboim via Zoom from the base.
KPIX reporter Betty Yu first met Appelboim exactly a week ago when he attended the San Francisco city hall rally. He described himself as a peace activist.
"I think most of my strength coming from my family and my friends," he told Yu on Monday.
His friends have also returned home from abroad to join the fight. Israel has called up more than 360,000 reservists to active duty after the Oct. 7th Hamas attack. It's one of the largest mobilizations in the country's history.
"Of course, I don't want to die. Of course I want to keep on my life, and I don't want to be stretched mentally. I don't want to be hurt physically," he said when asked if he was scared. "But I know this is about the future of my people. This is about the future of democracy here in the Middle East. We're the only democracy and we want to keep it this way. And we want to extend this freedom also to the Palestinians. We want the people in Gaza to live a better life. A better life cannot be lived with a terrorist organization like Hamas."
Appelboim said his unit is also focused on slowing Hezbollah's momentum from the north.
"I know the morale is really high for the soldiers. They know they're doing the right thing. They know it's time to take down this terror organization, to get to every terrorist who kidnapped a child," he said. "We'll do everything we can to minimize the civilian casualties. Me, as a student, I want to travel. I wish I could be in San Francisco right now, but unfortunately, I'm here. I really don't want to hurt anybody, but I will do anything necessary to prevent these atrocities from happening again."
Appelboim said his father was a combat soldier in the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, and still deals with the trauma today.
