Cut off from their families during combat in Gaza, Israeli soldiers rediscovered a simple, deeply personal way to stay connected with loved ones back home.

By Jordan Levy

For Israeli reservist Dudi Alon, one of the hardest parts of fighting in Gaza wasn’t the darkness, the danger, or the exhausting conditions. It was not knowing what was happening to his wife and seven children back home.

Alon, a member of the Jerusalem Brigade, was called up following the October 7 Hamas massacre. Once his unit entered Gaza, he found himself cut off from the outside world.

There were no phone calls, no WhatsApp messages, and no way to check on his family.

Then an old-fashioned solution emerged: handwritten letters.

Rediscovering the power of pen and paper

The National Library of Israel recently shared Alon’s remarkable story, revealing how soldiers accustomed to instant communication rediscovered the power of handwritten correspondence.

During the first month of the ground offensive, Alon and his fellow soldiers operated under extremely difficult conditions. They spent nights in complete darkness, unable to switch on even a flashlight for security reasons.

They remained in their boots for weeks and had little information about events beyond their immediate surroundings.

Eventually, soldiers received permission to send letters home, but Alon faced an unexpected problem: he didn’t have any paper.

He improvised by tearing pages from notebooks he found in Gaza, cutting away the Arabic writing at the top so his wife, Tehila, wouldn’t worry about where he was.

His letters were filled with ordinary questions that suddenly carried extraordinary importance. How were the children? Was the community helping? How were preparations going for their son’s bar mitzvah?

“I miss you and the children terribly and can’t wait to see you,” wrote Alon.

On November 15, 2023, Alon wrote to reassure his wife that he was safe and that his unit had everything it needed. He admitted that being unable to speak with her was the hardest part of his deployment.

A few days later, on November 20, he received a letter from Tehila. He wrote back describing how happy he was to hear from her and how desperately he missed the family.

The letters were photographed and sent out of Gaza, while replies were delivered back to the soldiers. Tehila kept the correspondence, preserving a record of the family’s separation during the war.

Letters that meant everything

Alon was not alone in reviving the tradition.

His fellow reservist, Master Sergeant Yaniv Oren, regularly wrote letters to people back home, including young people he mentored at a boarding school in Kibbutz Ein Gedi.

Oren was later killed during his military service.

For Alon, the letters were more than a way to exchange information. They helped maintain a connection with the people who gave his military service its deepest meaning.

He eventually returned to his family after hundreds of days of reserve duty.

Alon also works at the National Library, where he helps develop systems used to preserve historical records, including materials documenting October 7 and the war.

His family’s letters have become part of that personal history.

The IDF is known for its advanced weapons, sophisticated communications, and cutting-edge technology. But for soldiers isolated on the battlefield, a few words written on a torn piece of paper proved just as precious.