The IDF Alexandroni Brigade, which ousted Hamas from an UNRWA site it was using as a command center in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, is the military’s “tip of the spear,” brigade chief of staff Col. (res.) Yaron Lore told the Magazine recently in an interview.
At the end of July, Lore’s brigade completed multiple intensive months of fighting in northern Gaza, with his brigade also having served in the North at various points during the war.
In mid-July, IDF Division 99, including the Alexandroni Brigade, used a series of maneuvers to take control over Hamas forces relating to the UNRWA location, Lore said.
He said that during the battle, which extended over two days, they killed 50 to 60 Hamas terrorists.
Some of the terrorists, he said, were killed by tank fire and airstrikes, which he coordinated with the Armored Corps and air force, but others were taken out in face-to-face combat with his infantry forces, which included sharpshooters.
Lore was integral in conducting the movements and activity of the different forces to maximize eliminating enemy forces as they maneuvered, as well as to avoid friendly fire incidents in very close quarters.
In one instance, one portion of roving infantry surveillance forces he was managing tracked Hamas forces who had hidden in a nearby house, and another portion of forces he managed went on the attack against those Hamas terrorists.
What is so complex and high stakes is integrating all of the disparate attack elements to act against Hamas at the same time so that its forces would not be able to flee or catch its breath, all of which is Lore’s challenging role as brigade chief of staff.
In performing this role, Lore was constantly setting battle zones and lines for each battalion.
He said that “sometimes you can use a tank to attack, but sometimes this is too dangerous” either for Palestinian civilians or for nearby IDF forces, “and then you need more precise weapons to attack with – so we speak to the battalion commander to synchronize” operations.
Moreover, he described his headquarters team as involving “many pieces: intelligence, targeting, operations, engineering, logistics, communications, computers, with each separate professional expert team looking at their piece, and then you need to put the puzzle all together.”
Further, he described how in parallel to his constantly speaking to the battalion commanders of the brigade for updates, other members of his team are regularly getting updates from their counterparts serving with the battalions on the most forward lines.
Together, Lore and those he was managing would decide which of their units would deal with different pieces of enemy units and who would perform surveillance in one areas versus who in another area.
After an extended service since Oct. 7, his reservist brigade members were supposed to be given several months off to refresh themselves and restore order in their civilian lives.
However, this war has had endless twists and turns, and his brigade was recalled after only two months to dive back into the fighting.
Lore said that the whole brigade, from the commanders to the soldiers to the supporting logistics, is extremely strong, despite members having to leave their families, jobs, and university studies.
From Oct. 7 for the first several months, he said, there was “a flood” of volunteers at all times.
Even much later in the war, while he discussed the “big challenge for reservists missing work, family, studies [for younger student-reservists],” and acknowledged that not everyone returned for the second big round of fighting, the percentages of those showing up were still above 90% and often close to 100%.
Other units have seen larger drop-offs, though in general the percentage of reservists answering their call-ups is still quite high.
WITH HIS brigade having served during this war in the North for part of the time, and with his having served in actual battles in Lebanon in the past, including in 2006, Lore also addressed the challenge posed by Hezbollah.
“The enemy is very serious and smart, and we should not disrespect him. But we are in a completely different place than we were then [in 2006]. There are always problems, but now all the brigades have much better capabilities, a much more aggressive state of mind, and are less risk-averse than they were in 2006,” he stated.
Asked if he fought in close quarters with Hezbollah fighters in 2006, he responded, “Yes, my brigade and others I know met face to face with Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces. I am not putting them down, but in every altercation we’ll win. We are much stronger, much better trained, our morale is higher. We know how to win a big fight. It is just a question of our making a decision. If we decide, nothing can stop us.”
Pressed about Hezbollah’s 150,000 rocket arsenal, he acknowledged that if there will be a war in the North, “this would be a very big challenge for the civilian military home front. We will take some significant hits, and much of the country does not understand the scope of the danger. We also cannot stop it completely; some of it will continue. But we also have many capabilities, and after the first days we can cause much more damage” to Hezbollah than Israel did even to Hamas, where it [Israel] did not use its full air, tank, and artillery powers.
A large piece of Israel’s reducing Hezbollah’s rocket threat would be taking temporary control (Israel has no ambition to reoccupy Lebanon as it did until 2000) over southern Lebanon and possibly some other areas.
Regarding such an invasion, Lore admitted that “taking over would not be fast but could occur at a solid pace. The first few days would not be simple, but if we understand that there is no choice but war and come determined,” then the IDF will triumph.
Also, he said that the IDF would not allow such an invasion of Lebanon to drag out as long as it did in Gaza because Hezbollah’s huge rocket arsenal would demand more rapid taking control of areas to quickly and drastically reduce the rocket fire.
Bringing his analysis full circle back to Hamas, he said that even when the Gazan terrorist group sets up a highly complex network of booby traps which can lead to a small number of IDF casualties, the military still overcomes these obstacles. He called the Alexandroni Brigade “a well-oiled machine.”
A separate issue which Lore was asked about was the challenge of rebuilding Gaza for its civilian population.
He said that it would all depend on who was running Gaza and whether they used new aid funds to rebuild for civilians or to try to rebuild the Gaza terrorist apparatus.
In addition, he said the current fighting in Gaza would probably continue for several more months.
IN THE past, Lore has been involved in efforts to support the rule of law and the IDF high command, when elements in Israel have attacked these values.
Asked about recent attacks on the IDF Legal Division for taking actions against some Sde Teiman prison guards accused of sodomizing a Palestinian terrorist, he said – without knowing very much about the specifics of the case in question – that “especially after Oct. 7, we always need to remember that the IDF is the people’s army; we only have one army, and we need to support it.”
He added that the IDF is not perfect, but that the country needs to support it even when it makes some errors and to avoid politicizing it at all costs.
“No one must ever attack the IDF,” he said. “You can criticize respectfully, but never attack.”
Further, Lore said that he and some of his officers sometimes quietly debate political issues, “but when it comes to fighting, everyone is shoulder to shoulder to achieve the same mission.... I am very proud of the wonderful and very diverse men and women of Alexandroni.”
Finally, he said that the IDF and the country must come out with huge support for reservists, saying that this war clarified that the military cannot accomplish its missions without a much stronger and constantly trained reservist backbone.
From the field commander’s perspective: The UNRWA battle
Lt.-Col. Maayan Feldman, commander of the 8101 Battalion including the eight combat team around the Netzarim crossover passage area, fought in many of the same battles as Col. Yaron Lore, but even closer to the enemy forces.
“We came in on them fast,” he said, describing his battalion’s role in the same critical operation against Hamas at the UNRWA facility in northern Gaza’s Rimal neighborhood. “They had set up ambush positions outside, but we penetrated there first and took them by surprise.
“Lots of other times, they got to run away. But here, they did not have time to run away,” he said. “They were in shock. We also saw this from the huge volume of weapons we seized [usually they would escape with some of the weapons], including rifles, rocket firing platforms, and explosives. This makes their weapons situation more desperate.”
Evaluating Hamas’s tactics in the UNRWA area, he said that the terrorists moved through pre-made holes in walls inside, including ones connecting to the nearby mosque. Also, “from inside, instead of just having a booby trap on the door, they had another booby trap inside the facility – but we managed to catch it.”
Feldman said that of the 50-60 terrorists killed in the broader series of battles relating to the UNRWA facility, his battalion had killed 20-30 Hamas forces who were caught together, along with some who tried to flee but were then caught by his various soldiers.
Next, he noted that the Hamas forces tried to counterattack from behind portions of his battalion’s lines, but other parts of the battalion helped intercept the deceptive move.
“We found a communications hub and a center for coordinating a counterattack” inside the UNRWA facility, Feldman said. “They had a commander with them in the field and also a second commander giving them instructions remotely. But when you cut off their communications, every cell tries to operate independently. Not a single explosive was placed without planning. Also, the positioning of their rocket-propelled grenade unit was planned thoughtfully and logically.”
NEXT, he described how Hamas is using civilian locations and keeping civilian families nearby intentionally and systematically to shield themselves from IDF attacks.
The battalion commander said there were also Palestinian civilian families around the area where the Hamas terrorists were congregating.
Feldman said that his forces included a specially trained civilian liaison officer who coordinated an evacuation corridor for the Palestinian civilians from the battle space.
“We don’t want to kill kids or women. When we got close to the residence, we convinced them to leave. We also gave them food and water,” he stated.
Feldman said that between 10 and 20 civilians were successfully evacuated.
He complimented the Israel Air Force on their excellent joint work. In addition, Feldman said that his battalion also had its own drones and equipment to collect nearby tactical intelligence.
“There is no happenstance. Every mosque had a booby trap and a tunnel shaft to somewhere important,” he explained.
Moreover, he said, “They try to use our commitment to ethical values with the mosques so that we won’t strike their concealed terrorists. But once we see they are threatening us, so the terrorists must die.”
In the worst spot, “There were four improvised explosives set in a single mosque to protect against our infiltrating a single tunnel shaft.
“In the schools, there was a mix of video camera surveillance and improvised explosives to explode on us using remote controls. We always go to find weapons in the kids’ rooms because that is where Hamas focuses on concealing weapons,” he said.
“In one of the [kid’s] backpacks, we found an explosive device.”
PRIOR TO fighting in Gaza, Feldman’s battalion spent months fighting in the North, where they “also found and destroyed the enemy, with casualties on both sides. We were not just hiding in camouflaged positions. If we identified enemy movements, I tasked a tank or the Air Force or other methods to strike them.”
“We killed 10 to 15 Hezbollah fighters: some during the early days of the war when they tried to approach the border fence, and some at later points.” The IDF does not discuss specific operations but has made it clear that in rare instances, its forces briefly perform preemptive operations just over the border on the Lebanese side to improve Israel’s defensive posture.
Asked if and when the military would ever formally invade southern Lebanon, Feldman responded, “I don’t know, but we are ready. We will decide about Hezbollah just like we decided about Hamas. If we want to go in, we will do it with reverberating power.
“We can also hit them much more than we did in Gaza – much more aggressively, and it will be easier to fight,” he said. “In the South, we are always trying to avoid hitting civilians,” whereas Lebanon is a larger and less urban area, so the fighting “can be more symmetric.”
The battalion commander concluded: “Without good people going in to do their part, with many serving for 180 to 200 days, this war would be impossible.” But now he said that the reservists are even tougher and more ready to fight than before the war. “It has been a great privilege to lead them.”