(Jerusalem) Over 30,000 people paid their respects to lone soldier, Sgt. Max Steinberg at his funeral on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, yesterday morning.

Steinberg was killed battling Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, July 20 and was among the 13 IDF soldiers who were killed when a Hamas anti-tank rocket struck their armored vehicle.

Steinberg, like the 2,700 lone soldiers who have come from abroad and are currently serving in the IDF, had no family in Israel. The Los Angeles native first came to Israel in 2012 on a Birthright Israel trip and joined the IDF’s elite Golani brigade six months later.

Because he was a lone soldier, Steinberg was assisted by the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center, an organization whose mission is to help lone soldiers during their IDF service.

Josh Flaster, the National Director of the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center, who knew Steinberg, told Tazpit News Agency that it has been a very difficult time for the center, which serves as a warm-knit community for IDF soldiers alone in Israel.

“The Center in this kind of situation is working around the clock, getting our lone soldiers the assistance they need in such times – everything from clean socks, underwear and food to words of encouragement to lone soldiers right before they head out to Gaza.”

“Some of our lone soldiers have lost their best friends on the battlefield during this war; some have been wounded. We have over 250 volunteers, most of who were former lone soldiers themselves and have fought in battles, who are talking to the soldiers and helping in any way they can,” said Flaster.

“For example, wounded soldiers carried off the field, do not have their phones or wallets with them. We go down the hospitals and give these lone soldiers pocket money and anything else they need, because their families aren’t here to do that for them.”

The center also makes sure that proper respect is paid to the lone soldiers who have been killed in battle, organizing busses to funerals and sending volunteers to the mourning families coming from abroad.

On Monday, June 21, over 20,000 mourners gathered together in Haifa for the funeral of Sean Carmeli, a lone soldier from Texas who was also killed in Sunday’s fighting, alongside Steinberg.

Former lone soldier, Benji Davis, who made aliyah from Los Angeles attended Max Steinberg’s funeral today and spoke of the brotherhood that is felt among the lone soldiers serving in the IDF and their unique unity with the Jewish world. “Max’s passing reminds us that the IDF is not just the Israel Defense Forces, but it is the army for all the Jewish people, an army that defends Jews from all over the world,” Davis told Tazpit.

“I didn’t know Max personally but I realized today what it means to be fully Israeli. As someone said at the funeral – to be Israeli is to cry for someone that you never knew and who feels like your family. That is exactly how I felt today.”

“It was incredible to see tens of thousands of others feel that way too,” added Davis.

Hamas terrorists fired mortar rounds Wednesday at an IDF field hospital on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, according to a report on Israel Radio. The Israeli army set up the hospital last week to treat Palestinian victims of Hamas’ “human shields” policy, but the report indicated that the terror gang has prevented wounded Palestinians from seeking treatment there.

There is much I can write you about what is going here, but I am wondering what I should not write.

I will start by imagining that I am you, sitting at home in the Los Angeles area and flipping back and forth between the weather, traffic reports, the Ukraine, Mexican illegals and Gaza.

No matter what is reported in the United States about the war, the pictures inevitably are those of bloodied Gaza children who were killed by IDF forces today.

For the first time in the past two decades of conflicts with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah, Israel has found itself in a live or die situation in which Hamas, like Hezbollah eight years ago, uses civilians as human shields, a war crime.

Any other country would have finished this war in a day by carpet bombing terror-infested areas, no matter the cost of lives. A couple of thousands of innocent people would have been killed, Israel would be condemned left and right, but by sheer might, the IDF would have been able to continue to take over the rest of Gaza. The Arabs there would know they would meet the same fate as the first 2,000 if they cooperated with Hamas and allowed themselves to be exploited.

Unlike many others, I am happy the world judges Israel by the double standard because in order to be a Light Unto Nations, we really have to stick to our own standard.

That is why the IDF did not carpet bomb Gaza today. It also cannot continue to allow Hamas to threaten our existence by committing the war crime of using civilians as human shields. Those civilians killed today were innocent victims. I will not get into the argument if they were victims of the IDF and Hamas. I know the answer, and everyone can come up with his own conclusion.

I will say that whatever news you read, it is not complete.

Back in 1981 or 1982, I was a senior copy editor for one of Canada’s largest newspapers. That is a fancy title for five people who sit at a desk, rip off wire copy and decide what you will read and what you will not read.

At that time, I was totally out of touch with family. I had rejected Judaism for journalism and certainly had no connection with Israel. I never did. I never was a Zionist. I refused to look at pictures from Israel when my parents, may their memory be for a blessing, came back from their first trip here in 1960. My reason was that the country is not a religious state. At that time, at the age of 16, I was very, very observant.

So with that background, with no knowledge of Israel and not a care about the country, I read the wire copy that reported about the war in Lebanon. Every day, I read about the IDF “invading” and bombing Lebanon, and somewhere later in the articles, I read that Hezbollah had fired rockets on the Galilee.

This went on day after day. I read between the lines and told myself that something did not make sense. That is when I gave up journalism and set in motion my eventual return to Judaism. The spark of being a Jew never is extinguished.

I walked into the office one day and announced I was quitting the highest paying job I ever had and ever will have in my life. I didn’t even think of explaining why. No one would have understood.

There is in inherent bias in foreign media that Israel is wrong. “Objective” news reports are reported with the assumption that something is not right with Israel. That is true in the spiritual sense. Israel still is not what people want it to be.

The UN confirmed to the IDF Wednesday that the Al Wafa hospital used by Hamas as a base for terror and bombed by the Israeli Air Force Wednesday had been evacuated of patients before the Israeli Air Force bombed it, as reported by The Jewish Press here earlier today.

“The Al-Wafa hospital housed a Hamas command and control center and was utilized to direct and supervise the ongoing battles in the area. Among the hospital grounds, there was a lookout post, used to gather intelligence and monitor IDF forces activities in order to carry out attacks, and there were several access shafts to​ ​the Hamas tunnel network from within the hospital,” IDF spokesmen said.

The hospital was evacuated from patients and staff and continued to be occupied by Hamas gunmen who continued to fire at the IDF forces.

“The head of the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration with Gaza confirmed with the head of the WHO (World Health Organization) in Gaza that he has informed the hospital manager three times, that the premises should be vacated,” the IDF statement said. “The head of the WHO stated that the hospital manager declared there were no patients or staff in the hospital, and that the building is empty. This was confirmed by the Gaza CLA” on Wednesday.

The footage below shows secondary explosions, indicating an extensive amount of weaponry was stored.

Hamas told foreign media that civilians were killed in the bombing raid.

The IDF confirmed Wednesday night that three paratrooper combat soldiers and officers were killed in the morning when Hamas terrorists set off remote-controlled explosives in a house that was being searched in Khan Yunis, near the ruins of destroyed Gush Katif communities in central Gaza.

Fifteen other soldiers were wounded, and three of them are in serious condition.

The death toll of IDF soldiers and officers since the beginning of the Protective Edge campaign now is 30, and hopefully that will be the final number.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Wednesday in Israel as part of his ongoing efforts to arrange a cease fire between Israel and Hamas terrorists.

Kerry had little to say to reporters, however, and was quite terse in his statement upon his arrival for a meeting in Jerusalem with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“We have certainly made some steps forward,” he said. “There is still work to be done.”

Israeli soldiers have attacked a hospital in Gaza City — well, it was a hospital at one point — but Hamas terrorists have transformed it into a base from which to launch attacks on Israel.

It is impossible to ignore the source of lethal attacks on Israel and IDF soldiers, even when it appears to be a place of healing. Hamas terrorists have no problem using doctors and patients as human shields.

“The IDF has targeted specific sites and terrorists located within the premises of Al-Wafa hospital due to several occasions in which fire was opened at IDF forces from within the hospital grounds,” stated an IDF source.

“This, despite repeated warnings against such activities, and notifications to civilians to vacate the premises,” the source continued. “Recently, terror activities executed against IDF forces were enhanced and in several attacks a gunman opened fire and launched anti-tank missiles. This gunfire continued this morning.”

The hospital grounds and its immediate surroundings have been repeatedly utilized by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a command center, rocket launching site, and a post enabling terrorists to open fire at soldiers.

The IDF has raised its concerns with international organizations on numerous occasions and warnings have been conveyed directly to the hospital administration and other Palestinian officials.

“Hamas terrorists have been intentionally abusing the hospital and other international protected symbols to indiscriminately attack Israel and its civilians. The IDF is determined to prevent the ongoing aggression by Hamas that is directed by a strategy of exploitation and abuse of the civilian population and its wellbeing,” Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, IDF Spokesperson said.

Recently IAF pilots were forced to call off an air strike at the last minute when Hamas terrorists fled in an ambulance after being engaged by IDF paratroopers, out of concern there might also be an injured civilian within the vehicle.