Israeli customs’ insistence on treating items as regular commercial shipments have prevented contributions sent by US Jews from reaching soldiers for months. Many items may have to be binned and destroyed. During operation Protective Edge, many American Jews wished to contribute to their fellow brethren in Israel, mainl to IDF fighting soldiers. They sent goods such as food, equipment and many items, the total weight of which reached 400 kg.

According to The Libi Fund, established in 1980 as an initiative of the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Menachem Begin, z”l, the fund whose job it is to organize the collection and distribution of the donations, there is a mass of merchandise that has been collected in storage and this needs to be paid for–they owe close to 11,000NIS. If someone does not pay for the storage, everything in storage, literally thousands of dollars in brand new merchandise, will be destroyed by the Israeli government. Customs stressed that Libi was supposed to transfer a detailed account of everything in storage or else it would have to be destroyed. The CEO said this was a formal procedure and that they were waiting for a response from the Libi Fund managers.

By Or Wolman/www.jerusalemonline.com