Lt.-Col. “B,” commander of the Shaldag elite special forces unit, was at the forefront of the fighting to retake the Gaza Strip periphery communities that were invaded by Hamas from the first moments on Saturday morning. On Monday, he provided his narrative moment to moment for the first time.
B said he was awoken at 7 a.m. on Shabbat while at his parents’ house for Simchat Torah and informed about the invasion some 30 minutes after it had started.
He immediately held a virtual conference of commanders and told them: “War has started. Bring everyone.”B said his troops fought “with lightning in their eyes.”
Next, B started to coordinate with his planning officers about the exact prioritization of his units’ missions.
Soon after, he and some other units were in helicopters on their way to the Gaza Strip corridor, simultaneously reaching out to more units to head south.
The first Shaldag special forces units, with 12 fighters, arrived at Kibbutz Be’eri at 8:30 a.m., he said, and immediately started to fight to retake the kibbutz.
There was significant fire from Hamas terrorists at the special forces from the start. Some of the special forces personnel were killed or wounded immediately, and the forces realized that the kibbutz was full of terrorists.After reorganizing and five hours of fighting, they had killed 20 Hamas terrorists.
When B arrived at Re’im and the IDF’s divisional headquarters, it was still under Hamas control. There was a massive exchange of fire. No IDF forces were still there because they had left earlier to be first responders to defend the communities that were invaded. They had killed some terrorists, whose bodies were still strewn on the ground.B put in place a process to locate and isolate the main terrorist force occupying the IDF’s base.
Next, his forces went after the Hamas terrorist. About five of his special forces soldiers were wounded immediately. Some were rescued and evacuated, while other soldiers continued fighting.
Eventually, B’s forces successfully neutralized the main group of terrorists.
After that, they started systematically patrolling all parts of the base to eliminate the remaining pockets of terrorists, including using heavier weaponry as it became available.
‘I have seen the catastrophe with my own eyes’
It was not until around 6:30 p.m. on Saturday that the IDF divisional base was fully retaken.
Over the course of the day, all of the Shaldag forces were on their way south by helicopters, cars or even on foot.
By 2 a.m. on Sunday, many Shaldag reservists had also shown up, bringing the special forces numbers to 200 – along with much larger numbers of regular troops, paratroopers, and other special forces.
B said about five of his forces were killed and 15 were wounded, including his top deputy.
His forces have also been instrumental in taking and securing Kfar Gaza, while working with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to catch Hamas terrorists in hiding or trying to infiltrate into Israel.
B said criticism that the IDF have been surprised could wait for later, but right now, the focus must be forward-looking.
“I have seen the catastrophe with my own eyes,” he said. “But soldiers here are fighting – my forces and the entire IDF.
We are not worrying about our own lives, but only about saving civilians. There is no hesitation. Where there are civilians, we dash forward – from the moment I woke up Saturday at 7 a.m. until now.”
Many soldiers who were not at a specific spot that they were expected to be at were attacked on their way, B said, adding that some of the top commanders were killed or wounded because they were off duty and jumped right into the fray wherever it was, often without their full complement of forces.
B told a story about one off-duty commander who ran off toward where he thought the fighting was, happened to find a group of soldiers who were being trained to run basic-training sources, and commandeered them to successfully clean Urim of terrorists and save a group of female soldiers who were trapped and surrounded.
The fighting was fierce and everywhere, house to house, and at the closest range one could imagine, he said.
“The focus is the next civilian we need to save and the next terrorist we need to kill… We will win this war,” B said.
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