Interview: Aaron Bours — From Scaling Tech to Fighting Hamas

Aaron Bours is an IDF reservist who was severely injured by Hamas in Gaza. He is also the Chief Marketing Officer at an A.I. startup in Israel. This interview was edited for clarity and conciseness.

Ari: How did you go from being a regular kid in New York to fighting Hamas?

Aaron: I grew up privileged in Great Neck, New York. The town is 60 to 70 percent Jewish, especially in the 1990s. I had the luxury of growing up in a place where I never felt an ounce of anti-Semitism — in fact, the opposite. Being Jewish was cool.

I went to summer camps that weren't Jewish but, when I identified myself as a Jew, it was well-received by my Catholic Italian friend and my black friend from Brooklyn. Being Jewish didn't get me bullied; I was confident being a Jew and a supporter of Israel. Great Neck is one of the last bastions of Jewish pride in the U.S.

I went to Hebrew school and was able to express my love for Judaism, the Hebrew tribe, and Israel. My parents met in Israel. My dad is Dutch, and my mom is American, and my background fostered a strong desire to do big things for Israel.

Some influences were small, like the Israeli Day parade. Some of it was trips to Israel, planting trees in the Golan Heights, hiking in the Negev, or climbing Mount Masada. But I knew that, to truly impact Israel, I needed to be here physically.

The best way I knew to do that post-high school was to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) — the key word being “defense.” I'm not violent by nature; pro-peace is in my DNA. A good education teaches you to see both sides and to love all humans.

I understood the IDF to be a force for good and a defense for the Hebrew tribe. I love being Jewish and having tons of Jewish friends and family, so I picked up and left the United States to join the IDF.

I was president of my high school and took nine advanced placement courses. I could have enrolled in a prestigious college. Instead, I chose an intense “gap year” — two years in an IDF combat unit, Givati.

My intention was to return to America after serving. That changed after I learned Hebrew. I came here with nothing, as a lone soldier — Ḥayal Boded. I was part of a program called Masa. You come three months early and get accustomed to the culture; then you're in the army. You're thrown into the deep end and instructed to swim.

I learned Hebrew and overcame challenges. Iron sharpens iron, forcing me to learn the language, make friends, and leave my comfort zone in every aspect of life. I emerged from the IDF a much stronger version of myself — almost boy to man.

I couldn’t go back to the States; I fell in love with Israel. I fell in love with the culture, the land, the food, the women, the beaches, and the challenges and struggles of living here. I know every inch of me matters in this country. Everything I do here matters. Whether breathing the air or picking up a gun and risking my life, being here matters. That’s contagious and addictive, so I stayed.

Ari: Before the war in Gaza, Israel was relatively peaceful for a number of years. Given that, did you expect you would ever see combat?

Anybody who suits up for a combat unit in the IDF understands that this is a survivalist nation and, at any given moment, things can pop off. Peace agreements with bordering Arab nations are fragile.

I came to Israel right after 2008’s Operation Cast Lead. Soldiers died in that operation. I joined in March 2009, so the idea of another operation soon after wasn’t far-fetched. This was three years after the Second Lebanon War, when tons of lone soldiers died.

Israel enjoyed about five years of relative calm from 2009 to 2014, though soldiers were often killed in checkpoint attacks, stabbings, etc. In 2012, there was a scare called Amud Anon, but we never went to Gaza.

In 2014, I was called up for the first time for emergency conscript service on the borders. There were mortar shells. Hamas operatives were popping out of tunnels. My first taste of war and real danger was five years after I was drafted.

When we were stationed in the West Bank, we arrested terrorists. We went into their homes and found tons of weaponry and ammunition. I was proud of the work we were doing. But that was not nearly the extent of what I experienced on the border and in Gaza. Operation Protective Edge was conducted after three boys were captured in 2014, which was a relatively calm year otherwise.

That was my first experience with true terrorism, though reservists didn't go into Gaza. Fast forward to October 2023. Reservists were part of the first wave, an essential piece of the IDF strategic plan to split the Gaza Strip and provide a vice to squeeze Hamas.

Ari: How did you feel when you learned you were going into Gaza after Oct. 7?

Aaron: People think combat soldiers’ lives are dedicated to war. I was attending conferences for a generative A.I. startup for big U.S. health systems. In my day-to-day life, I’m chief marketing officer at a startup.

Combat is the 50th or 100th thing I think about. Beach volleyball, going to the gym, reflexology — other hobbies all come before combat training. Reservists are trying to build lives and have families. I got married a month and a half before Oct. 7.

Flying from Chicago to Las Vegas, I’d missed 20 calls from my Israeli wife, who was absolutely hysterical because a white pickup truck in Sderot with Hamas terrorists in the back was raining hellfire over civilians. I tried to calm her but, in the back of my mind, I knew this was different.

I arrived at the Encore Hotel — a suite overlooking Las Vegas — gorgeous view; we could see the new sphere. My CEO and I had tickets to see U2 that night. He arrived looking like a zombie, and a few hours later, the two of us were watching the death count. It started at 100. Then we got a message about Nova. It went from 100 to 200 to 300 to 800 to 1000 to 1200.

While we were stuck in Las Vegas, the army called me in; I was getting constant messages from my unit. We didn't have vests or helmets, but we were preparing at a base in the south to go into Gaza. They were training, and I was stuck in Vegas paying $12 for Fiji water. I could barely stand myself because I was not with my guys.

Part of me was f****** terrified at the idea of going into Gaza at this stage of my life. If I were 21 and had just been active in the service, fine. But I do a maximum of three training sessions a year now. Suddenly, I’m expected to be that level of combat soldier again. There was that fear, but worse was the fear that my unit would go to Gaza without me, and God forbid, somebody would get killed while I wasn't there to protect my brothers in arms.

It was insane to watch the country come together in defense. It wasn't the Avengers going to Gaza. We weren't going in to avenge Oct. 7 as superheroes. We were going with a clear mission and clear mind — to rescue hostages by putting military pressure on Hamas.

People willing to risk their lives weren't even called up. The attendance rate was 130-160 percent across all combat units. People were volunteering not only to go into Gaza, but also to do right by the hostages. I was happy and proud to be a part of that.

Ari: People like you are leaving their jobs to join the military in Israel. How many people do you know who did?

Aaron: I'll talk about the average reservist. The last U.S. draft was during the Vietnam War, so the American population doesn't understand what it means for average civilians to be called to do something bigger than their own career path. The West has difficulty grasping what a society with conscripted service looks like, without applying a lens that makes us look combative by nature.

We’re not aggressors by nature. We're a survivalist nation. Without that defense, we would collapse. This is a foreign concept for Americans because they are bordered by Canadians and Mexicans. I don't blame the average American for seeing Israel the way they do without having experienced it, heard true stories, or interacted with your average IDF soldier. That's what we are — average. I say that with pride. We're Average Joes called to do extraordinary things. That's a reservist.

Serving alongside me was a mechanic, an engineer at Intel, a judo instructor, a construction worker, the head of operations at a legacy tech company, a hedge fund worker, a teacher, and people from all walks of life. This is how it was in WWII, like Saving Private Ryan. People from all walks of life are called up, snatched out of their daily lives.

Ari: What is Americans’ biggest disconnect about Israel’s security?

Aaron: Living under constant threat of destruction forces you to be far sharper than you normally would. That's why such a high level of ingenuity and innovation comes out of Israel, especially in defense technology.

Israel thrives out of necessity. America thrives for other incredible reasons, but certainly not out of the threat of destruction. America is the world's superpower despite what people say about the rise of China and Russia. America is number one on the planet. Israel fights for survival. Everything else we squeeze out is a superb bonus.

Americans don't comprehend Israel’s Jewish population. If you ask an average American how many Jews exist worldwide, they guess 100 million or a billion. That's part of the problem. People assume Israel is another Jewish flex of power and control, and Jews will be fine without it because there are so many of us. But we're only 15 million, and half of us live in Israel.

The other issue is Israel’s size. Most Americans don't realize that Israel is only the size of New Jersey. The conversation is typically hijacked by the pro-Palestinian side, which will never relate these facts because facts dilute their talking points.

Ari: What was the camaraderie like within your unit?

Aaron: To get through the Gaza mission, we needed a lot of humor — dark humor. Jokes kept everyone cheery and afloat while we were eating s***.

Part of the Givati went in on Oct. 30. The reserves were the Negev brigade; it's extraordinary for a reservist unit to go into Gaza. In the beginning, the IDF was just setting up shop. We were getting our bearings. We slept in the mud. The nights were very cold; the mornings were super hot — the worst time of year to be outside for days on end. Reservists had hypothermia and were dehydrated. Conditions were terrible — not to mention, we were shot at from the get-go.

We entered on foot — six kilometers — in Beit Hanoun, north of the Gaza Strip. The gate where we arrived was like the apocalypse. I'll never forget the hike; it was the scariest time of my life. Each step was a step toward the apocalypse. We walked through a crumpled gate, with explosions and orange skies in the background. It looked upside-down from Stranger Things — like Mordor. It was really that level of calamity.

They shot at us every day as we walked through Gaza, for two to three minutes each time. They shot AK-47s, antitank missiles, RPGs, and mortar shells, and drones dropped grenades. Living amid this noise, we had to find some semblance of routine and sanity. A lot of that was getting to know each other.

People phase out of the reserves in their 40s. New people come in at 23 or 24. They haven’t finished active service; they're entering reserves. So, a lot of us were meeting for the first time, especially the younger kids. We needed to keep everyone sane and stable. We did that through humor.

We were allowed small radios and GoPros and some shenanigans. We allowed ourselves 15 minutes in the morning and evening to listen to news and music on the radio. Gaza is so close to Israel that we had good radio reception. We bonded like crazy and kept each other’s morale from going weak. It worked.

Ari: How long were you there? Can you talk about the ambush?

Aaron: I was there 15 days until the ambush. We were north of the Gaza Strip. They’d had weeks to evacuate. At this point, there were no civilians whatsoever in north Gaza — no dead civilians under the rubble and no live civilians to dodge.

Our mission was to oust Hamas and find tunnel entrances. We were not tasked with finding the hostages. Our job was to damage enough infrastructure to shrink the territory where hostages could be hidden. We had good intel that they were not in our area.

Tunnel infrastructure has to be destroyed above ground because all entrances are in civilian and public structures. We would never abuse such infrastructure in Western society, and that is also difficult for Americans to understand.

There were tunnel entrances in homes, so we went from house to house. I checked 20 different houses. We slept in those homes because there was no other option; we’d lose too much ground returning to base. We repeatedly saw Hamas pop up somehow into houses we’d already searched. They’d shoot at us from those houses, so we had to stay grounded.

Of the 20 homes we searched, 19 were connected to terrorism. We’re talking a playground of terror in the northernmost Gaza Strip, where they fire rockets toward Central Israel.

There was no art, no family photos, nothing on the walls of the houses except a picture of a martyr celebrating terrorism or an etching of the State of Israel that said “Palestine.” Finding photos of little kids holding AK-47s became a game.

Gaza is a civilization designed around terrorism — not the prosperity and perseverance of its own civilians, but the destruction and death of a civilization across its border. You can see radicalization in homes and in the way the kids are raised.

I found RPG heads in a child’s bedroom, rocket heads in the closet. One kitchen had a few weird-looking floorboards. We pulled them up and found AK-47s and munitions. Doors had notes on them from civilians telling Hamas to use their homes to kill as many Jews as possible; keys were left in the doors.

We went into only one home that wasn't connected to terrorism, a nice home. Its residents didn't seem to ascribe to violence. This seemed to be the home of a judge or a lawyer. I felt awkward being there and thought about whether the family deserved this. I wondered if they wanted to get out, or had voted for Hamas. I thought these were normal questions a non-combative, peace-loving person would ask.

I didn’t, and still don’t, believe civilians deserve this. But observing it firsthand made it clear that we do not have a partner for peace in Gaza. It's too radicalized and supercharged. Any move toward peace will require a full generation of deprogramming and of pro-peace, anti-violence reeducation.

As much as most Israelis want peace, we have to understand how these people are conditioned. They're born innocent and are zombified. Their lives are hijacked by militaristic jihadists who would have these people die if it serves their own purpose.

I digress. We found six tunnels in total. The most impactful emotion I felt during my army service was watching our fighter jet use a bunker-buster bomb to destroy a tunnel. It was the highlight of my Army career to know we hit their infrastructure.

The day I was shot, we were tasked with overtaking a house in north Gaza. This was a full sweep; we were moving house by house finding tunnels. One house was a tunnel decoy — affluent on the exterior but just concrete inside. No furniture — a tunnel entrance. 40 percent of Gazans live in poverty, and this is the kind of sh** Hamas pulls.

We were walking in front of a UNRWA school to take the next house at 11:30 on the morning of Nov. 14. I was in the officer squad, and I loved one officer. I’d spent three years in the reserves with him, and I asked to be in his squad. After I arrived at the house, the officer was the last to cross along with our comms specialist. As I turned around at the entrance to see where he was, I heard and saw two bullets fly. He was hit. Our comms person was hit. They were both on the ground.

It took me a second to understand what was happening. Day to day, I'm a marketer, not a combat soldier. I took off my bag. Four or five Hamas terrorists were shooting at us from the school. AK-47s were firing everywhere. I started shooting back to give cover fire, but they were like ghosts. They popped up from tunnels. They were usually inaccurate, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Two to three minutes later, I looked at my officer. He was in really bad shape, about 60 feet from me. I couldn't tell if he was critically injured or dead. If there was a chance to save his life, I had to take it; I sprinted to him while they were shooting at us. I got to him, lifted him, and moved two to three feet toward the house. I was hopeful I could reach it but, on the third step, boom! I thought my leg blew off.

The same sniper that shot my officer shot me. I was on the ground, wanting to inspect my leg, but there was a sniper behind the school. If I didn't get back to the house, I was going to die. I started to crawl.

Crawling pretty fast, I got shot again in my left leg by an AK-47 because they were still spraying bullets across my path back to the house. Bullets hit rocks, and rocks went into my right side and my lower back near my spine. I was bleeding profusely from four wounds.

Somehow, I made it to the house. Miraculously, our paramedic was already there with a few soldiers giving cover fire. He put a tourniquet on my leg, but he thought I was going to lose the leg. He thought I was going to die.

Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure I had a leg. They gave me tons of drugs, so I went on a spiritual trip. The best search and rescue in the world — 669 — showed up in a Hummer and got us out of there to the border. I was in a helicopter. They brought me to Sheba Medical Center. Within three hours, I was in surgery. Miraculously, I woke up, and the doctor told me I’d make a full recovery.

My first question was, do I have my leg? My second question was, where's my officer? I thought our platoon’s second in command was in critical condition. Turns out the first bullet was a headshot on the left side of his head, and he was killed instantly. I ran out to try to save his life, but there was no life to save. He was 27 years old, with a girlfriend of seven years he was going to propose to after the war. He leaves behind three siblings and parents who are just destroyed.

I loved him very much; he was a great guy, and his death will weigh heavily forever. I don't regret running to him; I did the right thing. I regret that we were in front of the UNRWA school and that we didn't destroy it because the IDF takes precautions not to destroy that type of infrastructure. Hamas abuses that knowledge and used it to kill our officer.

During 72 hours of fighting around the school, 10 Hamas operatives were killed. We found a tunnel and munitions in the school. Everything we know about the abuse of infrastructure — about Hamas using schools, places of worship, hospitals, command centers, and weapons depots to conduct battle — is all true, in my experience. I have a problem with donating to UNRWA.

In total, four people were injured in our incident. It will take two years for the more severely injured like myself to make a full recovery, but we will recover. That's the miracle of the story. We move on.

(Two weeks after this interview, Aaron told me that his path to recovery had changed and that he’d need more serious surgeries, adding another six months to the recovery process. He’s optimistic and knows he’ll make a full recovery.)

Ari: Is the rest of your unit still fighting?

Aaron: Our unit pressed on. A platoon has 75 to 90 combat soldiers. Mentally, two soldiers couldn't handle what happened. They had to bow out of the mission, but the rest of the platoon stayed in Gaza another month and a half.

There are always a handful of soldiers, especially in the reserves, who haven’t seen combat in a long time. Some people change after years away from combat. Needs change, obligations change, and their accountability is different.

For some who had kids, the mental toll — the guilt they felt being in Gaza and not at home, risking their life and potentially leaving their kids fatherless — was insurmountable. Some people couldn't do it. They wanted to, but they could not find the mental fortitude.

There's strength in familial values, providing people a very good reason not to risk their lives. For the most part, though, IDF reservists pressed on and did an incredible job. They were a critical piece of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

Ari: Is there anything else you want people to know?

People with Western values empathize with Palestinians because they're underdogs. Westerners believe they represent the oppressed, versus the oppressor — a standard cookie-cutter scenario that fits into their box of values and virtues. That's not the situation. People need to realize that Israel is the tip of the spear in a fight for Western values versus its antithesis — radical jihadism, radical Islam, and radicalization.

Americans don't understand that being pro-Israel is similar to being pro-American: pro-Western values and anti-jihadist. I don’t know when that disappeared. After 9/11, everyone got it. Everyone understood the global war with radical Islam and jihadism.

War exists because there are too many jihadists. Too great a percentage of Muslims worldwide are radicalized. It's not that the majority of Muslims are radical, but there's a large enough percentage of the world’s second biggest religion — soon to be the first — that are. And too few moderates, Americans, or Westerners are calling it what it is because they’re afraid of offending someone.

With everyone in the street chanting “free Palestine,” Americans have to wake to the realization that the Free Palestine movement is anti-America. Many aspects reflect anti-Western values, anti-family values, anti-patriotism, and anti-American values. When it becomes egregious, Americans will rise up.

My optimism for Jews in the U.S. and average Americans terrified by what they see: The pendulum will swing back because we’re approaching death to freedom, Death to America, and death to those values. So, I'm hopeful.

Ari: I hear that Israel’s most competent people are not getting involved in politics. Do you feel confident about Israeli leadership conducting this war?

Aaron: We have to separate government from the country and its people. I'm very confident in the Israeli people. I’m involved in the tech sector; tech people always say they'll get involved in politics and run for government, but they seem incapable of leaving tech behind.

Some of our greatest minds in the tech sector have solved some of the world's biggest problems in their designated fields. Those minds in leadership positions would benefit us all. For some reason, though, they are usually not the people who rise to power. It's the same in the U.S.

The government is irrelevant. The IDF is relevant. The IDF has a mission — to protect Israel from Hamas, Hezbollah, West Bank threats, and other security concerns, mainly on two fronts — one active and one inactive.

One is the northern border. The government has little faith in its people to do what's necessary, but we have every faith that the IDF will operate to the best of its capability. Post-Oct. 7, I don't know a single person in the Israeli Defense Forces who wasn't ashamed and in complete shock that we allowed such a catastrophic breach of our border.

All of us were snapped back into the reality that we are a survivalist nation. Israel must defend itself with 100 percent attention to threats around us. I have utmost faith in the IDF that if war starts, we will be ready, and we will prevail. As to the government, we will seek change at the right time. There will be retribution for what happened on Oct. 7 and for those who were negligent.

It doesn't matter if Netanyahu or Bennett is Prime Minister. We, the people, will make it happen. We will fight to make sure this country continues. That's your average Israeli.