Members of the IDF’s Egoz unit spoke with Tablet Magazine in an interview published on Thursday about their experiences fighting against Hamas in Gaza and the close encounters they have had with death.
The 24-year-old men interviewed had been fighting in Gaza from the beginning of December until the end of January.
One of the young soldiers told Tablet of the difficult situations members of the Egoz unit face. He spoke of having to make split-second decisions where lives were on the line, including the lives of hostages, civilians and his own.
“To stand there, with your finger on the trigger, in front of a hole in the ground (a Hamas tunnel)...at 3 o’clock in the morning, and someone says to you, ‘Listen, you’ve got to make sure that the person that comes out of there isn’t a hostage before you shoot. But, if you take too long, a split second too long, and the person that comes out of there is actually a terrorist, and he shoots you first…’ Nobody says that to you but that’s what goes through your head,” the soldier said.
In December, a similar situation to the one described by the Egoz fighter occurred. Hostages Alon Shamriz, Samer Talalka, and Yotam Haim were mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers during an intense combat with terrorists in the civilian neighborhood of Shejaja in Gaza City.
‘A big responsibility’: Ensuring fellow soldiers make it home
One of the soldiers spoke of the weight his two months in Gaza had on his mind and the responsibility that came with his role.
“Every day that I woke up in the morning, I wake up, I open my eyes and I say ‘f***.’ I have here a team of 20 guys, so that’s a big responsibility, and every second, you need to be your best version because there are no places for mistakes, and every mistake is a friend’s life," he said. "But the friends, the friends are the ones who keep you sharp, keep you sane, the one who keeps you in a good mood. That’s everything.”
Adding further weight to the life-or-death situations faced by Egoz fighters, one of the soldiers recounted a situation where he was only meters from an explosion, and terrorists tried to kidnap one of his unit members.
“This one time… A general of Hamas, we had intelligence that he had entry to a big tunnel. We were working around his backyard, looking for the entry, and all of a sudden, there was a massive explosion, and [soldiers] were like 10 meters out of it. After another 15 minutes, there was another explosion. The first one was to try to hurt us, and the second one was the entry to the tunnel, and they were supposed to get out of the tunnel and try to kidnap one of us.”
“Unnormal things become normal in Gaza,” another soldier interjected. “So, after a while, when you go through a lot of houses, it kind of becomes like a routine.
“So, I got to a house and saw this weird brick in the entrance of the gate. I looked at it. It looked a little bit suspicious but I said eh, its like all good. I came to push the gate open and get inside the house and then (pointing to the soldier next to him) yelled at me ‘Stop!’ Like one moment before I pushed the door and then we saw there’s like a little wire going into a bomb in the end of the door…If I would opened it…Yeah, I would have got a little bit explosion,” the soldier said with a light chuckle. “That’s why I bring him (the soldier next to him) with me everywhere.”
“At that moment,” the soldier continued, “after it didn’t happen, I just looked at him (his fellow soldier) and started laughing. I was like, ‘Oh s***, that was a close one.”
One of the soldiers spoke of another difficult situation they faced, where two of the men had spotted a suspicious car close to the entry of a house they needed to search. The soldiers preemptively threw a grenade at the car to ensure that it would not explode as they were close by. However, shrapnel from the explosion embedded itself in the arm of one of the soldiers. Showing off a comedically posed photo of the moment he pulled the shrapnel out of his fellow soldier’s arm, he recounted in an amused manner as his colleague told him to “take it the f*** out of my arm,” which he did before they shared a cigarette.
The men laughed at the incident as the soldier who had been hit admitted “It was a bit too close.”
Speaking more seriously on the human consequences of the war, and the extent the IDF soldiers place themselves at risk to ensure the safety of civilians, a soldier spoke of taking a microphone to a central location to warn civilians. “If I’m out in the street, any sniper from any building, and they’re all buildings, can have a shot and let it be,” he said.
The same soldier added his respect for older reservists serving their country during the war, telling the magazine, “When you have people that are serving with you, who are also reserves, but they’re 35 years old, they’ve got three kids, they’ve got a wife, they’ve got a business, they’ve got stuff going on and they dropped everything to come and protect their country. These are people who have no intention of, no real need for war. They just want to live their life.”
Returning to the comedic tone, the men spoke of how they hid the dangers they faced from their worrying mothers.
“I lied to my mum throughout the war,” one soldier admitted. “All the time.”
Another soldier also admitted his mother didn’t know the danger he had been in, “we tell her only the laughing things.”
Making light of conflicts predicted to come, one of the soldiers said, “I need a vacation until [Israel fights Hezbollah in] Lebanon, and after that, I need another vacation.”
What is the Egoz unit?
The Egoz unit was established in 1995 and named after the ‘Egoz’ reconnaissance unit, the IDF explains on its website.
The unit’s goal "specializes in guerrilla warfare, mainly along the northern border of the country," the IDF notes. It is a part of the Commando Brigade.