Golani’s poison merged with technology: “No fighter will be abducted by Hamas”

Six years have passed since the difficult battles of the Golani Brigade in Sajaiya in Operation Eitan, and it seems that quite a bit has changed: The fighters of the Brown Brigade have in recent days completed extensive training that simulated fighting in the Gaza Strip, which began with slow progress from defined lines where the fighters entered Hamas’ lines of fire, and turned into real contact battles with terrorists. In the Golani, it appears from the exercise, they intend to bring more sophistication and cunning to the fighting in the Gaza Strip, compared to the one presented in 2014. View documentation from the exercise at the beginning of the article.

The spirit of Chief of Staff Major General Aviv Kochavi, at least according to his statements, is to kill as many enemy fighters as possible. In a meeting with the brigade officers in the industrial area of ​​Sderot, where the exercise was held, it seems to be coming true.

“A destroyed enemy is an enemy that you have seen with your own eyes that it has been destroyed. A destroyed structure is not enough. We will approach until we see in an eye contact the destroyed enemy,” said the commander of the 51st Battalion, Lt. “Tonight in the exercise, we exterminated 26 terrorists in one of the acts after encountering a Hamas reserve unit that came out of a tunnel. We ambushed her, attacked her with a firefight from an aircraft and then stormed at her.”

Alongside these, the brigade admits that they would prefer to take prisoners, because of their intelligence value and their quick interrogation, which this time will take place on the ground – and immediately. “In the exercise, we captured a ‘terrorist’ and found in his pocket a battle prescription with specific ambushes waiting for us. That’s how we later identified two squads and attacked them,” said Pesal.

The issue of prisoners does not only concern the IDF, and in the event of a war is expected to concern the enemy as well. Hamas, like Hezbollah, has learned lessons from the changes in Israel’s positions regarding prisoners. The terrorist organization knows that the value of a captured living soldier is much higher.

In talks with officers in the Golan Heights and other brigades, including reserve brigades that will maneuver in a possible war in Gaza and Lebanon, it seems that no extensive dialogue is devoted to the issue with the fighters. The main preoccupation is casual – and focuses mainly on preventing kidnapping by maintaining vigilance and adhering to the “iron pairs” of the fighters at all times.

The various divisions are less concerned with dealing with the possible detention, with the possible investigations, or with the pursuit of the kidnapping squad. “Such an incident is no longer a battalion, but a brigade and north of it,” the battalion commander explains. “We will fire significant fire to block the escape routes in the depths of the Strip.”

Lieutenant Colonel Pasal explained that Hamas is expected to strive for the abduction of a soldier, who could create the illusion of a victory image for him, in his words. “If we come strong and with peripheral security, it will not happen,” he promised. “I tell my soldiers – there is no such thing as a Golani fighter being abducted. The fighters will show aggression in any scenario, and we also train them for close combat, really physical with the enemy, even for such situations.”

One of the main differences seen in the exercise concerns the brigade’s movements – including the distance from which the fighters began to advance to the alleged targets from Israeli territory. No more embarking on a journey from areas close to the destination with a “head in the wall”, but a progression of many kilometers, further from the eastern parts of the Gaza Envelope.

The movement was conducted on foot or in the new anti-aircraft guns, which the brigade is equipped with. Whenever the forces reach a point where Hamas may identify them and fire anti-tank missiles or mortars under the auspices of the western Negev plains, the forces stop at defined “lines of exposure” and use fraud – which manifests itself in flanking or bypassing.

These lines of exposure are presented to them by the command and control system Beacon 750 in its new version, which analyzes for the commanders the ground and the lines of fire in front of the enemy. The system can be updated with up-to-date real-time intelligence data – directly from the intelligence department, to the small tablet in the department commander’s pocket. That way, he will be able to know about the locations of Hamas anti-tank squads, about Knesset members – and even about tunnel openings.

However, this technological richness also comes at a price, and not just in the loss of night vision in the human eye for 5 minutes, after looking at the bright and thin display. “We do not want to be dependent on these systems, so we dropped them in the exercise for 72 hours,” explained one of the brigade officers. “The commanders were required to navigate and maneuver, to build axes of progress – and all without the technological aids, with which it is possible to get the whole battle image in three dimensions with intelligence injections.”

The command and control system, for all its advantages, is notorious among the echelon that carries it on its back. More and more fighters, from all divisions, are constantly complaining about glitches and turning it into unnecessary weight in exercises. The new version, however, you can change it.

Early in the morning, after a white night of exercise between Sderot factories, Brigade Commander Colonel Barak Hiram tried to persuade the fighters to believe in the threat, though on a solid cliff, he saw for himself that most of the terrorists killed were hit by air, artillery, or tanks.

“There will certainly be meetings between Kalashnikov and Tavor. The missions will be clear, the objectives are measurable. A company will not be given a mission to stop rocket fire from a particular neighborhood or topple Hamas rule. It will have to reach a certain point and destroy the enemy,” said a senior brigade officer. “It is impossible to fight to get a picture of victory or to prevent such from the enemy. An army cannot fight with paranoia and traumas from the past. There must be no decision on a prisoner or dead person.”