Establishes a project ‘Enveloping Gaza for Observers’: "We prepared all female observers in hooded wraps, and we also kept them for kidnappings because we knew they would return"

“We have seen full-fledged observational abductions. All the levels are waiting for them, knowing and believing that they will return and they will return to us. We will give them time, as much as necessary,” Yogev Azoulai, who founded the project ‘Encircling Gaza for Observers’ in 2020, tells ‘Daver’. In all these years, he and his partners know each female observer by name, give a welcome gift when they arrive at the stations and a farewell gift at the end of the liberation, and on every holiday and birthday gifts and blessings. From the beginning of the war, and after it became clear the extent of the damage to the Nahal Oz outpost and the female observers who served there, Azulai and his partners mobilized to contact the bereaved families, the organization of the female observers, and the families of the kidnapped female observers.

The hoodie they made in the ‘Gaza Wrap for Observers’ (photo: private album)

Azulai and the female observers with the hoodies they received. “Today there are dozens of volunteers from Ashkelon to Kerem Shalom who adopt female observers and congratulate them personally on every birthday” (photo: private album)

“Until the war, an observer who enlisted could not handle a single event for the entire duration of the service, it’s a very abrasive role,” says Azoulay, who since 2020 understands how critical their role is. “Thanks to the vigilance of female observers, the infiltration of ten terrorists was prevented in 2020. My wife Liora-Ella and I live in Sderot, and we decided that we should thank them. On Rosh Hashanah, after the event, we went through all 300 female observers in the Gaza Envelope and handed out candy symbolically, but we felt that it was not enough. We arrived month after month, and on Purim we decided to recruit more people and distributed personal parcels, now there are dozens Volunteers from Ashkelon to Kerem Shalom who adopt female observers and congratulate them personally on every birthday.”

Azoulay with a plaque honoring female observers. “It strengthens the girls and that’s what gives us strength” (Photo: private album)

He had time to get to know Karina Ariev and Daniela Gilboa Yogev, but Naama Levy, Agam Berger and Liri Elbag, who arrived shortly before they were kidnapped, did not even have time to receive the first row of the reception. On October 8, 2023, they were supposed to meet the organization’s representatives in honor of their arrival in office. Since the abduction, the project has kept all the secrets, and only recently they issued a hoodie with the names of the kidnapped female observers and the inscription “Proud to be an observer in the Gaza Envelope”. “We kept them for them, of course,” Azulai says proudly.

“We waited very much for the release and the Sabbath passed with anticipation. At the end of the Sabbath we saw that they had returned and we were happy to find out that the rumors about Daniela’s death, which we did not believe for a moment like her mother, the heroine, are lies. It takes a lot of energy and time from me, but my wife knows that these are my daughters. It strengthens The girls and that’s what gives us strength. We hope for a quick and complete recovery.”