\n<\/p>\n
The message popped up at 10:55 a.m. on Thursday: \u201cLooking for volunteers to help unload a truck of equipment for soldiers. We are at the Museum of Tolerance. Come, there is nobody here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barely four minutes after the note appeared in the 1,000-member WhatsApp group for volunteers in the Jerusalem area, Hadas Duchan showed up and got to work dismantling crates of thermal underwear, fleece jackets, hats and other gear procured by an American nonprofit organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps you get over your feelings of helplessness,\u201d said Ms. Duchan, 34, an artist whose two brothers are among the 360,000 reservists recently mobilized by Israel\u2019s military after the Hamas terrorist attacks Saturday that left at least 1,200 dead.<\/p>\n
As Israel signals that a ground invasion of Gaza could come any day, its shocked and traumatized citizens are pouring their anxious energy into raising funds and collecting goods for those in need: soldiers; survivors of the atrocities; hospitals treating the thousands of wounded; and people whose loved ones were killed, are still missing or are being held hostage in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Thousands of grass-roots initiatives have also sprung up across the country, many organized on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mothers were donating breast milk for orphaned infants. Dozens of florists and events designers are making hundreds of funeral wreaths and bouquets for hospitals instead of bridal bouquets and table arrangements, working out of a refrigerated agricultural warehouse at a cooperative near Israel\u2019s international airport.<\/p>\n
Some large nurseries have been donating the flowers, which were coming in by the truckload, said Elki Jacobs, a designer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extraordinary,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now, the spirit of Israel is here in the streets, in the restaurants, packing clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ms. Duchan said she had joined a number of volunteer-oriented WhatsApp groups on Saturday night, as the scale of the horrors from the Hamas assault<\/a> was just beginning to become clear. She spent Wednesday distributing food and medicine to families in Ofakim, a desert city about 15 miles from Israel\u2019s border with Gaza that was infiltrated by the gunmen.<\/p>\n \u201cMy heart aches also for the civilians in Gaza who were not to blame for this,\u201d Ms. Duchan said. But she added that, for many Israelis, the outpouring of grief and help was personal.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know anyone who doesn\u2019t know someone who was there and who was hurt or killed or kidnapped,\u201d she said of the attacks in the Israeli villages<\/a> near Gaza\u2019s border and at the musical festival<\/a> that ultimately became a killing field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Just around the corner from where she was working at the Museum of Tolerance on Thursday, staff members of the gourmet kosher restaurant 1868 were preparing 600 meals: schnitzel, kebabs and a vegetarian option. The chef, Yankale Turjeman, said that customers were donating money for the food, which would be sent to hospitals, army bases and Sderot, a city near the border with Gaza that suffered a significant number of casualties<\/a> in the Hamas assault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With many weddings canceled, a Jerusalem wedding hall was turning out thousands of meals a day for soldiers.<\/p>\n Similar acts of support were cropping up all over Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n