Northern Logistics Center – How it all Started

Meet Eyal Meyerovich, 47, a resident of Nahariya, married to Penina (52) and father to Shahaf (22) and Shir (19), a carpenter for a living and an artist by trade. One day when all this is over, Eyal tells me, I will take my art a step further, finish building the house in Kibbutz Eilon (today he is evacuated due to its proximity to the border where life has stopped) and open a gallery for my works there. But now it is time for another job to which everyone should enlist; we have a country to save, both security-wise and socially.

I asked to meet Eyal in the place to which he is most connected and he invited me to his carpentry shop and studio in Kibbutz Yehiam. Outside, the Israeli flag flies, free in our land, next to it a black flag warning of danger and next to them the flags of the organizations he believes in and on behalf of which he works. There are a lot of principles in these flags, Eyal says. The country comes first, then the struggle to preserve its principles, and finally the truly good people around me with whom I share a common set of values ​​in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers. I've barely been here for 11 months, and I'm completely invested in the national effort. While we're talking and an alarm interrupts the conversation, we run to the nearest shelter. "That's nothing," Eyal tells me on the steps leading down to the shelter, 2 kilometers from here in Aylon, Hanita and Aramsha, it's really a war zone, madness. After a few minutes we return to the carpentry shop, the headlines report that there is a minor injury from falling fragments from the intercepted missile.

So How Did You Get This Far?

It started with shock, it seemed to me like everyone else. I didn't know what to feel in the face of this terrible thing that had happened to us and I shut down, 3 days in front of the TV were enough to fill me with tremendous, pent-up rage. I went down to the Kabari intersection, my intersection, and held up one of the signs I had made and hung up two days before, in bloody red writing on a black background. "There is Only One Guilty Party" was written on the sign and I just fell apart. For two hours I stood there with the sign and fell apart until the police threatened to arrest me if I didn't move. There was a huge commotion of army forces that had come north and police forces that blocked the intersection for fear of terrorists infiltrating the area; an atmosphere of the end of the world. I drove from there to the carpentry shop and couldn't work. At that point, many local relief organizations began to emerge, from individuals, communities, and councils. These relief organizations assisted the growing forces and the evacuees: they cooked meals, helped with laundry, supplies, transportation, and anything else that was needed; a joint national effort. I turned to one of the relief organizations to help, and from turning to other relief organizations, I realized that the lack of coordination between these good people who only wanted to help was a complete waste of resources, and the need to coordinate between them was the order of the day.

I immediately contacted a person I know at the headquarters of the struggle that established the Civilian Operations Center in those days, led by Brothers in Arms, with a huge emergency array in the center (at Expo) and in the south (at Beit Kama). They did crazy things there under fire. The country was caught with their pants down and the government was not functioning. The civil organizations did all the work and Brothers in Arms were the spearhead. That very evening, I received a call from Doron Shahar, who was appointed by the Director General of the Civilian Operations Center to establish a parallel northern operation in case a high-intensity war broke out in the north as well. Doron added me to the spearheading team, adopting the cooperative initiative that I proposed and gave me a free hand.

Eyal manages the soldiers' operations center and the logistics center that recently moved from the Sagi 2000 industrial zone near Migdal HaEmek to the Haifa Bay (it was originally in Tzipori). Eyal says: Here in this place with the wonderful people around, all the magic happens. They are all volunteers. In fact, in the eleven months since the start of the fighting, more than 1,000 volunteers have passed through here, it's crazy, the most beautiful people in the world.

So Where Do You Start?

It started in the kitchen of our house in Nahariya, I opened an Excel spreadsheet, I sat with the phone in my hands and I started mapping out all of the operations rooms on the north. After mapping out the first 20, I understood the needs and started building a tool chest to help them in their mission. I connected kitchen operations, laundry operations, connected between places to stay and sewing operations, and I built a huge transport operation by merging several small ones. I made connections between the operations rooms and enlisted every service necessary to assist with their activities. The organization that was overwhelmed by the southern front and the huge undertaking in the center suspended the opening of the planned operations in the north so I continued to build the מערך from the house. At a certain point it became impossible because instead of continuing the mapping and building of tools, I found myself just putting out fires and trying to solve pointed problems that arose; I needed help. I recruited desk workers who came and helped me at home, and at the same time I turned to Doron and the headquarters and explained that the time had come to move forward and open a physical headquarters as we had planned.

It finally happened and we entered a 6000 meter hangar, a large facility that would soon contain a huge operation. In parallel with my headquarters called the “Remote Desk”, an Emergency Operations, Operations for Evacuees, and a Logistical Setup was initiated. Withing the framework of the Remote Desk, my staff and I continued to crystallize, map out and maintain contact and provide service to dozens of local headquarters in the north (at its peak we reached more than 80 headquarters). That’s how the “Northern Aid Initiatives Community” was born and we were the pipeline through which most of the requests were placed in the northern operations.

I take a tour with Eyal of the impressive structure of the northern operation, which has since moved twice. There is a carpentry shop that builds furniture for soldiers in the field, a factory for shade nets, there are guys unloading fitness equipment and a desk that is run like a real war room. Shelves with lots of equipment and products and a few more things that Eyal will explain to me later. Lots of action.

So how do you get from an operation that does telephone mapping and virtual connections to an active physical array like the one I see here?

A tremendous amount of work, original ideas and committed individuals. At a very early stage we went from a remote office to a project headquarters. It started with an artillery unit that requested boards to build cover after the first rain. They wanted to place the cover near the barrel so they would have a dry place between shooting.

The solution for them was of Nechalim Succa frames instead of boards and canvas and instead of plastic sheeting that they thought of providing originally. That’s how the “Succot for the Artillery Division” came about. It wasn’t so successful for them. The first time the shot a mortar, the cover blew off from the thrust, but the idea took hold and an insane demand was created for the product throughout the army.  At that stage in the war, the fear of the approaching winter on the one hand and the shortage of tents in the army for such a large number of forces made us very popular and our product a hit. We changed the name of the product to "canvas domes" and built a complex system that met the high demand and provided 1,800 "tarpaulin domes" by the end of the winter.

This project led to many others. As part of the winter project that we called "Brothers in the Rain," we created shelters from the wind ("wind dome") in the form of greenhouses and fireplaces from barrels and shell casings. We called the project "A Fireplace for Weapons". We equipped soldiers with any shortages and provided thermal clothing, heating products, and food. We conducted unique operations for female combatants and combat support personnel with equipment specifically for women. We called it "Women at the Gun barrels." They loved it. We provided military units with 19,000 raincoats as part of "Operation Malbish." There was also "Operation Coffee" for coffee pods, the needs from the field did not stop and original ideas flowed. We took care of everyone, lone soldiers, the wounded, in the south, the north, on bases and in the field, we even built classrooms in the field for students in the reserves and reservists who wanted to work remotely, "working and learning in uniform". We provided comprehensive and specific solutions, there was just too much to cover, work that never ends and fulfills you anew every day. During the transition period, we did a project that took care of the soldiers' spirit, "IDF Spirit" in which we built libraries with books and bookmarks, seating areas for the field and gyms with fitness equipment in a project called "Combat Fitness". We are now in the midst of our summer project called "Summer Camp" and are making sure to make the hot days a little more pleasant and cool for our soldiers with equipment and cold drinks, with a shade net factory that we set up at the headquarters and even an ice cream truck that distributes popsicles and ice cream cones in a project we called "Operation Icees" and has already delighted many thousands of soldiers in all sectors, bases and training areas.

Really Impressive, everything you mention requires so much man power and funding.

It's incredible, but this very unique activity is based entirely on volunteers, donations, and creative ideas. You have to work at it 24/7, you strengthen it and reinvent yourself every time, but the test of its results indicate that it is possible. In terms of volunteers, we have the permanent team, which is the logistics desk people who volunteer in shifts two or three times a week and operate the whole business, we always need more people there. Alongside them, there are the daily volunteers who come once a week and do whatever is needed. There is the technical team that implements all my crazy ideas and provides technical solutions, builds and travels all over the country for installations, there are the amateur carpenters who come to work shifts in the carpentry shop and build cheap units, libraries and more, and there are the people in the transportation division, without whom this business wouldn't move anywhere, wonderful people who donate their vehicles, their time and also finance the fuel for trips all over the country, reaching the front lines in the south and north and any point that needs to be transported to or from. As for the budget, there is a limited budget for procurement and there is a lot of improvisation and recycling. We operate a project called "Headquarters Tourism" in which we receive groups from Israel and abroad for a day that begins with a video about the establishment of the civilian military camp, a presentation showing the very special things that are happening here in the north, the ones I spoke about, and then they integrate into volunteer work for the soldiers in the on-duty project. Currently, it's creating shade nets and very soon we'll be back to the famous "canvas domes."

And what about you, your family, your livelihood?

I'm totally fine, I find great satisfaction in this work. For several years now, the struggle for the image of the country has played a significant part in my life, and many times it has also come at the expense of my livelihood and family. But the goals of taking care of the future of my daughters and the future of all of our children, who will be able to live in a good place like when we grew up, seem to me the most important thing in the world. Since October 7th, everything has taken on new meaning, and this work is really the main thing right now. There is understanding at home, and I also try to strike a balance. This whole thing has lasted longer than we expected and in fact we don't see the end in sight, and now the north is also warming up. As for livelihood, I'm fine. In the first few months, it was full volunteering with help from friends. Later, when the organization also saw fit, I started getting paid. Today, I need some extra money, so I took a job and I work on weekends in a carpentry shop.

Right now, the situation is pessimistic and we probably haven't reached bottom.

There's no hope for the kidnapped, the evacuees from the north, or the war in Gaza. The government is ignoring the citizens, it's disconnected. The economic situation is worsening. There's no outreach, and our foreign relations are at an unprecedented low. But there is also sorrow. The massive civic mobilization is optimistic, and even after every decline, there's an uptick. I have to be optimistic because that's what I'm fighting for. I also belong to an optimistic organization. We in the Civilian Volunteers are here to stay after the war and continue to do things for society to help it rebuild itself as a model society. After all our efforts, we have the ability, the will, and the human capital to take it a step further. We are on a path to transforming from an aid organization into an organization of change. We provided fertilizer and now we will water and help communities grow and thrive. I believe that a year from now we will be on the opposite path, of growth, of a healing society, and we will hope for days of peace soon, for the return home of all the hostages and regional agreements that will bring peace and prosperity.