Like most people in Israel, Ran was awakened by sirens on Saturday.
He lives in Tel Aviv. His full name cannot be used for security reasons. He is a soldier in Israel’s elite Lotar counterterrorism unit.
Ran went to the shelter with his family, and then went back to sleep. Then there was another siren, and he turned on the TV to see the horrific images the rest of the country was waking up to.
In another part of Israel, Tal Boorstein, a reservist and regiment commander in the 969th battalion, which is part of the 7643 brigade in the Gaza division, was also called up on Shabbat. He left synagogue and said goodbye to his family in order to head to his unit, which is usually deployed in northern Gaza. “We took our uniforms and equipment and went to the call-up,” said Boorstein. This would be his third operation in Gaza. Many reservists who had been out of the unit for years wanted to join and help.
Meanwhile, Roe Bergman, a company commander in Kfir, was also awakened at home. His unit was deployed near Nablus in the West Bank. He, too, donned his fatigues, got his equipment and weapon, and began preparing for war.
“I took my equipment and my rifle, and we headed south,” he recounted. “During the drive, we began to understand how large the attack was, and we arrived near Kibbutz Re’im, driving from Netivot and then through the fields.”
Soon afterwards, the soldiers heard the sound of fighting. They arrived at the kibbutz, where they met the unit’s commanding officer. The extent of the attack and horror of the day began to sink in.
Twenty-five kilometers north of Re’im is another community, Or HaNer, near Sderot. Barak Cohen, a member of the kibbutz’s security team, was also woken up by sirens. The community is two kilometers from the border. He heard from his security team, the Kita Konenut, that they needed to go help their colleagues in Erez, a kibbutz even closer to Gaza, just across the road.
The men got their weapons and ammunition and rushed to Erez. The security detail living there were facing a difficult situation, with terrorists infiltrating from the border and shooting from bushes and tree lines. The civilians were all sheltering at home. It was feared that the terrorists had already broken into the kibbutz.
“Immediately, I and another member of the Konenut went to Erez; we found the leader of Konenut, and he took us to the location. We saw one person dead, from Konenut, at the entrance to a house, and there was a lot of shooting at us and bullets over our heads. We tried to respond with fire.”
It was still early in the morning, but as the fighters began to arrive at various locations, they became aware of the extent of the attack. The IDF was still mobilizing. Many units on the border had been overrun.
Retaking Gaza border towns after Hamas massacred hundreds of civilians
No one had any idea that already hundreds of civilians were being massacred.
THE COUNTERTERRORISM Lotar mission deals with complex hostage situations. In general, upon arrival it assesses the situation and uses precision tactics and special tactics to neutralize terrorists. “I have to be certain about every shot that I take and be responsible for every bullet that comes out of my rifle,” said Ran.
The team is supposed to be an QRF (quick reaction force), along with other elite units such as Shaldag, Duvdevan, and Seyeret Metkal. On Saturday, it had to deal with a massive terrorist wave swamping the entire border and threatening 20 communities and some 60,000 people.
The QRF always has a unit on standby that can proceed to a scene. By 7:30 a.m., the first unit had arrived in Sderot. This was a four-man team, and it was confronting a situation where, according to some estimates, 250 terrorists had tried to infiltrate the city.
“As the first team went to Sderot, my team member and I went to the unit and began mobilizing the team [to operate] alongside the Gaza Strip, from south to north, to see how we could create some safety net around the Strip in order to push and make it more organized when the entire military arrives and joins the fight,” Boorstein explained.
As he proceeded to join his unit, he said, all the reservists had received the gear that they needed. This was in contrast to some reports of reservists showing up and saying they lacked some important items.
“Every soldier who came got a weapon and helmets and everything needed, including water, food, and ammunition. We have it all.”
Meanwhile, Bergman’s Kfir unit had retaken Re’im.
There had been some 40 terrorists there, and they were neutralized. The unit killed 10 of them. Then they began to assist in the rescue of people. In one home, people were hiding in a shelter, and terrorists were in the house.
The unit came to the door and managed to throw grenades, killing the terrorists and rescue those hiding.
TWO TERRORIST bodies were found. It took two days to secure the entire area.
Then the unit went to Kibbutz Be’eri, where there had been a massacre and more than 100 bodies were found. This was a difficult battle.
Now Bergman has been sent to the North, and another unit had replaced theirs.
For Ran and the QRF, the battle had just begun.
The Lotar went street by street in Sderot, clearing the city of terrorists. They killed at least 15 among the enemy. They said terrorists were operating in many places, and the initial chaos meant that the enemy seemed to be everywhere. One member of the Lotar was killed in Sderot; another was wounded. The team of 12, bolstered by other members who had just arrived, was then led by the sergeant, who took over for the wounded commander. “By 8:30 to 9 a.m., a lot of special forces units were joining us to create this safety net in Sderot, and they continued the fighting,” Ran recounted.
The unit was also involved in retaking and securing the military base near Nahal Oz, where, Ran estimated, there were 150 IDF casualties. Some were killed and burned alive, he said. “You can imagine what they did to the bodies, and the amount of things I’ve seen, it’s not even close to what a human being is. I can’t imagine what drives them to do such things... We saved as many soldiers as we could; some were trapped and hiding alongside the outpost.” After securing the area, they moved along the security fence to an IDF outpost called Taga.
There, they found a scene from a horror movie. It was quiet, silent even. Yet the war was raging along the border. The Golani brigade was supposed to be in Taga.
The counterterrorism forces had 28 members by this time, including some from Oketz, the unit that operates with specially trained dogs. Ran praised one of the dogs for saving lives in the battle.
As they moved through the outpost, which seemed abandoned, suddenly they saw two shapes in the distance. It could be a hostage situation, they feared. But it turned out to be two terrorists, and the Israeli fighters shot them. It took about 30 minutes to clear the area, and they saved five Golani soldiers who were sheltering. “We scanned another site nearby that belongs to another Israeli security service of Israel.”
When the area was secure, they moved on to another mission and drove to Nir Yitzhak, a kibbutz. “It was Saturday night. We were guarding around the kibbutz and making sure no terrorists were infiltrating the kibbutz lines. By now, reserve teams were mobilized to Be’eri. There was a whole massacre there of 100 to 200 civilians; none of them were armed,” he said.
He then joined IDF units from Shayetet, Shaldag, Yamam and others to retake the area. It took 18 hours of fighting. Then they helped evacuate people from Kissufim, Nir Yitzhak, Sufa, Kerem Shalom, and other places.
ON OCTOBER 7, the QRF faced an unbelievable challenge never seen before in Israel. With 20 locations under attack and approximately six units trained for these kinds of situations, they had to prioritize where to go first. For instance, Shaldag and Seyeret Matkal went to Sderot. Others went to Be’eri and Ofakim.
Many areas were left for the locals to defend, as they had to wait for the army to arrive. That was the case in Erez. Cohen and his small team from the two communities were able to save the kibbutz from slaughter by laying down fire and keeping the enemy away from the community’s entrance. However, they felt surrounded for many hours and knew there were enemy snipers nearby.
“From 7 to 11 a.m., no one came to support us,” he said. “We didn’t know what was happening. We wondered ‘Where is the army?’ Then we understood that there was a large attack.”
They felt alone. The enemy brought up an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and fired at them. It hit a house, but luckily the family inside survived. They heard the sound of tanks in the distance but didn’t know what was happening. At Or HaNer, there was concern that terrorists could strike. Cohen faced the difficult choice of whether to send two members of the team back to his community or to keep them in Erez. They stayed in Erez. There was a buzzing, perhaps a helicopter in the distance. But the din of shooting meant it was hard to know.
Eventually, the army arrived at 11 a.m. and rescued the security team. An entire community was saved.
Others had been massacred.
Cohen was then called up to his unit and began serving near his community. “The casualties we had was the member of the Konenut who died, and two wounded that we managed to rescue from the terrorists,” he said. “We had a very complex situation.”
He emphasized it is important to understand that in the most recent days of the war, his battalion experienced success. “We are approaching victory. We are a strong nation with a strong army.”
BOORSTEIN”S UNIT defended communities around Gaza during the fighting on Saturday and in the days after. He has a long record of experience in these types of battles, having served in the 2006 Lebanon War and in this year’s Operation Break the Wave and Operation Shield and Arrow. Despite the initial setbacks on Saturday and the massacre of civilians, he stressed that Israel will win this war.
“We will rebuild – here and everywhere in Israel,” he said, adding that all of Israel saw the hellish story that unfolded on Shabbat. Everyone watched the news and saw “very difficult images.”
“But despite how hard it is, we will win and change and become a stronger society as Israel knows how to do.”