"The terrorists hid under the blanket. We eliminated all 6."
Upon receiving the call about 6 terrorists making their way to a post in the southern Gaza Strip, 2 engineering platoons from the 7th Infantry Division jumped towards the identification - and within a few hours, eliminated the entire squad. A day later, a platoon commander who was in the platoon recreated for us the dramatic moments, and the feelings that accompanied the platoon up to these moments.
"We received a report of a terrorist squad advancing towards the outpost - and shielding themselves with blankets," said Lieutenant N., a commander in Company B of Battalion 603, recreating the incident last night, during which the forces of the 7th Special Operations Command eliminated six terrorists in the West Rafah area.
"It sounded strange to us from the beginning - so, my company commander and I jumped in, gathered more fighters, got into the armored personnel carrier - and drove towards the identification point." And so, alongside another armored company, the force advanced and began scanning the area. "We put drones in the air to understand exactly where the terrorists were. We managed to identify three of them, and we immediately opened fire on them," the company commander says.
Two terrorists were killed in the shooting, and the third began shooting at IDF forces. An exchange of fire took place at the scene. "We began to improve our position, led by the company commander - we took the vehicles back a little to take him down."
And even by that moment, the incident was not over. "The fire 'froze', and in the meantime we continued the searches. That way, we were eventually able to close the circle on all the terrorists that the command center had identified. We fired in a targeted manner at the remaining ones - and finally eliminated all six."
Those minutes didn't pass quickly on the agenda: "This is an unusual situation in a ceasefire situation, and unusual in the negative sense of the term. But thanks to the precision and speed with which we closed the incident - my department, until now, almost 24 hours later, still feels that we are very strong here, and that we did something significant here."