{"id":28399,"date":"2009-01-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/maccabi-players-visit-soldiers-at-the-gaza-border\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T08:59:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T05:59:41","slug":"maccabi-players-visit-soldiers-at-the-gaza-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/maccabi-players-visit-soldiers-at-the-gaza-border\/","title":{"rendered":"Maccabi Players Visit Soldiers at the Gaza Border"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">By Amy Samin<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = \"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office\" \/><o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">At the press conference that took place before Thursday night\u2019s game against Olympiacos, Pini Gershon related how he was touched when he was approached by several players, among them foreigners, who wanted to cancel Friday\u2019s practice in order to travel to the border with <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = \"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" \/><st1:City w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Gaza<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> and visit the soldiers who are taking part in Operation Cast Lead.<\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><\/SPAN><BR><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/Seffi%20090109%200028.jpg\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">The coach agreed to their request, and on Friday Casspi, Eliyahu and Fizer traveled to the border.<SPAN style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><BR><\/SPAN>The visit lasted for several hours, and drew an ecstatic response from the IDF soldiers.<o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">\u201cWe went to Golani and Givati bases right on the border and cheered up the soldiers,\u201d explained Omri Casspi.<SPAN style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><BR><\/SPAN>\u201cEveryone knew exactly what had happened in the game against Olympiacos, and we were really happy to cheer them up.<SPAN style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><BR><\/SPAN>The platoon\u2019s commanding officer related that one of the soldiers who was hurt on Thursday night said, \u201cForget my injury \u2013 how did Maccabi do in the game?\u201d<\/SPAN><\/P><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal align=center><BR><\/P><o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><IMG border=1 hspace=0 alt=\"\" align=baseline src=\"https:\/\/www.maccabi.co.il\/mtpic\/Seffi%20090109%200030.jpg\"><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">The most striking thing about the visit was the presence of Marcus Fizer.<SPAN style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><BR><\/SPAN>If a visit by Israeli players seems understandable, it was surprising that the center, who has only played in <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Israel<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> for a year and a half, wanted to take part in the trip.<o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\">\u201cThe participation of Marcus shows how much he cares about the country,\u201d said Casspi of his teammate.<SPAN style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><BR><\/SPAN>\u201cIt was very nice gesture on his part, and kind of unexpected, for an American to visit our soldiers in a war zone.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P> <P style=\"MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt\" class=MsoNormal><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE\"><o:p><BR><\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/P><SPAN style=\"FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: Batang; mso-fareast-language: HE\"><A href=\"mailto:samintranslations@yahoo.com\">samintranslations@yahoo.com<\/A><\/SPAN> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three players (Omri Casspi, Lior Eliyahu and Marcus Fizer) from Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv traveled to the border with Gaza Friday to visit soldiers there.  \u201cWe cheered them up.  One of the soldiers who was injured on Thursday said to the commanding officer of his platoon: \u2018Forget my injury \u2013 how did Maccabi do in the game?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"custom_author":[],"class_list":["post-28399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494889,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28399\/revisions\/494889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28399"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maccabi.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=28399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}