By Jerry Klinger in Boynton Beach, Florida
Approximately 2,800 years ago, a raiding party burst from Gaza. They surged across the adjacent fields deep into Judaea, into Israel, searching for plunder and human victims to kidnap. Plunder was fine, but captured Jews were the most valuable. The old and the infants were killed as useless. The young and healthy were brought back to Gaza as hostages to be sold at the highest price.
The raiders were elated with their success and the number of hostages they captured. In Gaza, the people cheered, danced in the street, threw sweets in celebration, berated, degraded, and humiliated the stunned living prisoners dragged before them.
Raids from Gaza to kill, kidnap, and sell Jews happened again and again.
The 8th-century BCE Biblical prophet Amos was a shepherd from a small community south of Jerusalem. He knew of the horror that emerged from Gaza. Amos prophesied Gaza’s destruction for the systematic kidnapping of entire Jewish communities, which they sold into captivity. God would not forgive them for what they did.
“Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea, for four, I will not reverse it: because they carried away captive a whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. So will I send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.”
The prophecy was fulfilled. Sargon II destroyed Gaza in 720 BCE.
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian terrorists, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Gazans burst across the fields, deep into Israel. They killed approximately 1,200 people that terrible day. They kidnapped another 240+ back to Gaza. In Gaza, the people cheered, danced in the street, threw sweets in celebration, berated, degraded, and humiliated the stunned living prisoners dragged before them.
The victims, alive and dead, were later sold for very high prices.
On October 7, 2023, the terrorists reached their deepest penetration into Israel, 24 km from Gaza, the Israeli city of Ofakim.
Early, around 6:45 a.m., the terrorists arrived in Ofakim from the West along Route 241. They were heavily armed with guns, hand grenades, RPG rockets, plastic explosive charges, and mines.
The residents, startled from their sleep by the scream of the sirens, scrambled out of their houses seeking the safety of nearby bomb shelters. The terrorists waited and killed the unarmed as they tried to reach safety. Methodically, they proceeded house to house, pounding on the doors, yelling, “Jew, Jew, open the door.” They shot anyone they encountered.
A few residents, under Israel’s tight gun control laws, who were permitted to have handguns, emerged fighting back. The tiny police force fought back. A couple of soldiers, home for the holiday weekend, joined in the fight. They were all heavily outgunned.
They fought back with the ferocity of Lions.
By 10:00 a.m., the lopsided battle was over. Twenty-two terrorists had been killed. Six defenders had fallen. The carnage left about 27 civilians dead in the streets. The terrorists, with their wounded, withdrew to Gaza.
The Israeli army did not arrive until 2p.m. that day.
The second Holocaust, a mini-Holocaust, was over by the next day. The struggle to redeem the hostages from Gaza had only begun.
Working with Sam Philipe, a sixth-generation Jerusalemite and internationally recognized artist and sculptor, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) decided to honor the courage of all those who resisted the terrorists on October 7. We decided to build the biggest Roaring Lion in the Middle East. JASHP would fund the project.
It was proposed to the Mayor of Ofakim Itzik Danino. He readily approved the project with one requirement: it must be placed at the site where the terrorists entered Ofakim along Route 241.
Construction began in late 2024 and was completed in the early fall of 2025. The giant Roaring Lion, about 24 feet in length, approximately 10 feet at the shoulder, stood on a 10-foot stone and sand platform. The powerful sculpted lion is the biggest in the Middle East. We waited for Ofakim to finish the groundwork at the redesigned intersection.
Time passed, another war with Iran, and the terrible struggle in Gaza continued. Finally, Sam and I, along with the mayor, agreed that the dedication and the formal placement of the dedication stone would be postponed indefinitely. It was better to site the dedication stone and worry about the dedication ceremony later.
February 28, again, war broke out with Iran. Death rained from the air. The people of Israel stood bravely against the onslaught. To his great credit, Sam recognized it was important to bring the dedication stone now. It was a statement of honor, a statement of Israel’s courage against the odds.
A few days ago, Sam and a few helpers heaved the 300-pound dedication stone up the terraces, setting it just below the massive beast.
The text on the stone was from Amos.
אריה יהודה
“כֹּה, אָמַר יְהוָה, עַל-שְׁלֹשָׁה פִּשְׁעֵי עַזָה, וְעַל-אַרְבָּעָה לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ: עַל-הַגְלוֹתָם גָּלוּת שְׁלֵמָה, לְהַסְגִּיר לֶאֱדוֹם. וְשִׁלַּחְתִּי אֵשׁ, בְּחוֹמַת עַזָה; וְאָכְלָה, אַרְמְנֹתֶיהָ”
(עמוס א’, ו’ ז’)
The Lion of Ofakim
“Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea, for four, I will not reverse it: because they carried away captive a whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. So will I send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.”
(Amos 1:6-7)
Donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation,
With Support from the City of Ofakim
Ironic, the name of the existential war being fought with Iran is Roaring Lion.
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.