Eliav Elbaz, the outgoing commander of the Binyamin Brigade, can be the poster boy for Israel's diversity of these days. He was born in Dimona, Mizrahi, served in the paratroopers, and found himself at the heart of the conflict: Palestinian terror on the one hand, Jewish terror on the other, and in between, the internal divisions of the state and the people, which also draw him in.
His two years in Judea and Samaria were turbulent. He took office just after Operation Guardian of the Walls, when Palestinian terror reared its head, and ended it when Jewish terrorism also raised its head to unfamiliar proportions. The first part is understandable: for this purpose he came to the sector, an outstanding officer as part of his combat service course. The second part is less understandable: it owes Elbaz quite a few confrontations, turning him into an enemy in the eyes of the extreme right.
Binyamin brigade commander replacement ceremony in ancient Shiloh. Outgoing brigade commander Eliav Elbaz and his replacement Liron Biton // Photo: Shlomo Mattityahu/TPS
A few days before he finished his job, we met in the brigade. Elbaz was kept from speaking throughout the role, but now he sounds like he was shot from the muzzle of a cannon. Eloquent and matter-of-fact, but also very eager and loaded, and mainly seeks to tell his story, which is the story of the IDF and to a large extent of all of us in the impossible sector of Judea and Samaria. We received a smiling testimony just before we parted, when we arrived for filming in the area, and Elbaz stood up to talk to two soldiers from one of the Home Front Command's battalions – Rabia the Druze and Or Yehudi, who are doing operational activity together at a time when nothing in Israel is really taken for granted.
"A small moment of happiness," Elbaz rightly put it.
"A counterterrorism machine that works night after night"
Towards the end of his term as commander of the Binyamin Brigade (Ramallah), Elbaz agreed on the activities carried out within the brigade during his two years as brigade commander. The numbers are staggering: almost 2,000 arrests, of which 300 were intertwined within the Palestinian territory. "It's a counterterrorism machine that works night after night," he says. "You go everywhere all the time, nonstop. If I leave Ramallah and the refugee camps now and don't initiate arrests and offensive operations, this business will fall. We have to keep our finger on the pulse all the time."
With Defense Minister Galant. "We are in a super complex period", photo: Ariel Hermoni / Ministry of Defense
During those two years, there were four fatalities in the Ramallah sector, all in an attack at the Ali gas station in June, in which four Israelis were killed and four others were wounded. "If it wasn't for those 2,000 arrests, we would have dozens killed here. We prevented attacks just before, people who already had weapons, a squad with wills. There was a Hamas squad here that came from one of the villages and received $40,89. A sniper came, positioned himself in front of Beit El, managed to fire three bullets and hit some sukkah, and then snipers from the 40th Battalion gave a volley and killed him."
$<>,<>? That's a lot of money.
"Hamas has a lot of money. Salah Arouri, who comes from the village of Arora in this sector, goes around Arab capitals in the Middle East and checks who is available in Allenby. As soon as he sees on the Internet or Telegram the possibility of a cell that could carry out an attack, he gives money, the weapons come from smuggling or theft or self-production. We're fighting it all the time, and that's why we've raised the price of weapons."
How much does M16 cost today?
"Around 60,50-<>,<> shekels. That's a lot of money."
And how does the money pass?
"Either in digital currencies or commodities. They send a man with a container of jeans, he sells it in Bitonia, and here he has money. They convey it in ways that are not easy to get on. We're constantly fighting it. A month ago, we confiscated 650,<> shekels in one day."
On the security situation: "In detention in the village of Quba, I saw an M16 in the living room. During interrogation, the detainee said that he was supposed to carry out an attack in the morning. A mother who has to take her children to kindergarten, if she knows this, will she have more or less confidence? It's better for people to sleep soundly."
Elbaz says that the profile of terrorists is changing. If in the past they were members of well-known networks, some with a past in Israeli prisons, today the IDF and Shin Bet encounter many of them for the first time when they carry out an attack, without prior intelligence. "It's a huge challenge for the system, to surpass them."
Despite these terrorist figures, Elbaz was criticized quite a bit for the lack of security in his sector. "People in Judea and Samaria want security, and rightly so, but you need proportions. They say all the time that you need a defensive wall. I remind you that we left Defensive Shield after 130 fatalities a month, when the Israeli economy was shattered. This is not the case today. We entered then in order to occupy the cities, and to obtain intelligence in order to thwart it. Today I can thwart whoever I want, wherever I want, 24 hours a day, without limit. In the past I had to go into Qalandia with battalions, today I go in with 16 people, pull out whoever I want out of bed and go home.
"People here have become accustomed since 2007 to relative quiet. Many new families have arrived here, the population has doubled, there are now half a million settlers in Judea and Samaria. In some localities, high-rise towers are being built. On the other hand, the Palestinian population is also growing. There are close to 3 million Palestinians here, and the problems are only growing. The decree did not repeat itself after the Guardian of the Walls. There are still terror attacks, and we are in a super complex period."
Absolute beeping at the rules
The roads in Judea and Samaria are congested, some even jammed. Israeli and Palestinian vehicles mix with each other, often on wild driving. Vehicles overtake on the edges, sometimes in a white line, with complete observance of the laws and a clear danger to human life. In this area, there is a clear advantage for the Palestinians, although Israelis are also not sufficiently guarded.
The danger from dangerous driving is the safest part for those traveling in Judea and Samaria. The more threatening part is terror attacks. The media deserves only what kills, but everyday life is accompanied by many small incidents, the gap between which and damage, injury or death is sometimes just a matter of luck. Here stones are thrown, Molotov cocktails are thrown, and quite a few shooting attacks that end without casualties. Part of this stems from the complete freedom of movement that Palestinians have in Judea and Samaria, and from the ability of a squad to carry out an attack in one area and flee to another.
For this reason, the local leadership demands a separation between Israeli and Palestinian vehicles. To create difficulties for the Palestinians – checkpoints, barriers, travel hours – in order to allow Jews safer movement. Elbaz says it will do the exact opposite: If the Palestinians are imprisoned in cities, a great many of them will turn into terror, and if only Jews travel on the roads, it will be much easier to locate them and every attack will be bingo.
"Popular terrorism is a very complex and difficult issue. It could be one that passes by a road, throws a stone and goes home. Sometimes, when I arrive at an arena where a stone was thrown and a window was broken, I ask myself if the person knew five minutes before he was going to throw that stone. There is no prior intelligence on this, and still it is the brigade commander's bread and water here. I deal with it 24 hours a day. Every citizen at whom a stone is thrown, I call him, ask what is happening, where it happened, if he saw or recognized anything. There are hundreds of youths here who throw these stones, and we have zero intelligence about them. In this sector there are 147 kilometers of roads that pass between villages, rubbing shoulders with the locals. A boy like that shouldn't walk more than a meter from his house."
And what do you do?
"There are hundreds of soldiers who, while we're sitting here in the air conditioner, go around intersections and roads to secure the business. We're always trying to bring it down, but it's hard to bring it to 100% success."
How do you create deterrence?
"Assuming you can't shoot at children here, you grab and stop and put fences and obstacles, and deploy a technological infrastructure of cameras and collection, and give fines to parents."
What are fines for parents?
"A child you catch throwing stones today – you bring the father to the DCO and give him a fine. We work at it. You'll see my screen saver picture on your phone."
Huwara, May 2013. Palestinians throw stones to protest the flag parade in Jerusalem, Photo: AFP
Elbaz takes out his cellphone. The picture is of a shattered car windshield, through which sits a little girl. "They threw a stone at an Israeli vehicle, and the girl almost hit her in the head," he says. "For this cute girl, I'm here with my people at this crazy job. Every time I take out the phone, I remember what I'm doing here every minute."
There is a gap between what you do with this number of arrests and killings and the residents' sense of security – sorry, lack of security – on the part of the residents. How frustrating is that?
"I'm always in a dilemma about how much to share with people here. We had an operation here in the village of Quba, a brigade arrest at three o'clock at night. Everyone is closed on the house, coming in and calling me. I arrive and see an M16 in the living room, and the ISA coordinator starts questioning. The resident doesn't answer, so they take him for interrogation and ask why the weapon was on the couch. He says that at 11 p.m. he was at the shooting range to reset his weapon and make sure it was in good working order, then returned home, and at 8 a.m. he was supposed to arrive at the British police junction to carry out an attack. To tell the residents of Ofra such a thing or not? And a mother in Neve Tzuf who has to take her children to kindergarten, if she knows this she will have more or less confidence? I think it's better for people to sleep soundly, not to know what's going on around them, and we work around the clock."
You didn't answer me - how frustrating is that?
"It's frustrating. On days when there is more popular terrorism or terror attacks, people come and ask me why the army doesn't do anything here. It's hard to explain what happens here every night. The crazy operations, the arrests and assassinations and the pursuits, the Hamas infrastructure that we are dismantling here. Sometimes you catch a person with a weapon a minute before he enters the community to carry out an attack, and then you meet civilians who are angry that they got stones."
Still, popular terrorism is frustrating, hence the demand to separate roads, for example.
"Whoever says that, he has no idea. 99% of the Palestinian public currently lives in a normal routine. As soon as we isolate, we will bring many more people into the circle of terror, and the shooting attacks will also increase significantly because only Israelis will travel here on the roads. I know this because I've been here during times like this, where every morning and every night there were psychic shooting attacks. People then traveled with ceramic vests and helmets. They forgot that."
Such activity will also require the IDF to deploy many more forces into the field.
"We are stretched to the limit here, but if I bring the 75th Battalion or the 82nd Battalion here to take up a line, who will train on the tanks to be ready for maneuvers in Lebanon? You have to take that into account as well."
But can you understand the criticism?
"Of course. People here want security, and we work the hardest in the world to create security for them. But there is no 100%, nor will there be. And I repeat that without all this crazy work, the situation here would be much worse. I haven't closed an eye here for two years."
"Bringing families into the normative circle"
Elbaz believes that routine life for Palestinians is not only a Palestinian interest, but also an Israeli one.
"The first time I entered Ramallah, two years ago, I was shocked," he says. "We were walking around the city for a while and I saw meters. You know - a man comes, parks the car, puts five shekels in order not to get a fine, and leaves. My last time here was at Defensive Shield in 2002. When we entered Ramallah, there were no sidewalks, no traffic lights, no cafes, no shopping malls. It was all one big ruin here. The city has made significant progress since then. Therefore, it is important to us that livelihoods here continue and the economy grows and the roads are open and 150,<> Palestinian workers enter Israel to work and remain free of terror. I think there's success in this area."
על מימון הטרור: "לחמאס יש המון כסף. סלאח ערורי מהכפר ערורה מסתובב בבירות ערביות במזרח התיכון ובודק מי פנוי באלנבי. ברגע שהוא רואה באינטרנט או בטלגרם היתכנות לפיגוע, הוא נותן כסף. אנחנו נלחמים בזה. העלינו את המחירים של הנשקים"
הוא מספר שבכל סופ"ש נכנסים לרמאללה 15-10 אלף ערבים ישראלים לקניות, לבילויים, למסעדות. זה מגלגל את הכלכלה, מעלה את רמת החיים, מאפשר לאנשים להתקיים בכבוד. "ברגע שלאבא פה יש משכורת להאכיל את המשפחה שלו, הוא שולח את הילדים שלו לחינוך, הם מטיילים, אוכלים, חוגגים את החג שלהם וחיים חיים נורמטיביים, יש לנו פחות פיגועי טרור. ככל שנכניס יותר משפחות למעגל הנורמטיבי הזה יהיו פחות פיגועים".
ברמאללה יש פחות טרור מאשר בערים אחרות בגדה.
"זה אינטרס שלהם. זאת הבירה הפלשתינית. כל בכירי המנגנונים יושבים כאן. יש פה שגרירויות, קונסוליות, בתי מלון ומסעדות מלאים, וצריך פה משילות. תיכנס עכשיו לעיר - כל כמה מטרים יש שוטרים שעומדים בצמתים, מכוונים תנועה, נותנים דוחות, אוכפים חוק וסדר. זה הסיפור, שהכלכלה פה תרוץ קדימה".
והמנגנונים פה פועלים נגד תשתיות טרור?
"כן, האינטרס שלהם הוא להיות חזקים פה ובכפרים מסביב. יש לנו איתם שיתוף פעולה מלא".
והיות שהם פועלים, צה"ל ואתה פועלים פחות?
"לא, אני יכול לעצור ברמאללה את מי שאני רוצה, בכל שעה של היום והלילה. בשבוע שעבר ביצענו מעצר מסוערב בלב רמאללה, ליד כיכר מנרה, ב־11 בבוקר, כדי לקחת מחנות מישהו שנחשד כי הוא פעיל דאעש שמניע עניינים. אנחנו פועלים פה כל הזמן".
אתה נכנס הרבה בעצמך?
"אני נכנס לשטח לא פעם על אזרחי כדי לקחת דופק, להבין שנייה מה קורה מסביב, לראות חלק מהאנשים. יש דברים שלשני הצדדים יש אינטרס לפתור אותם".
מה הכי מטריד את הפלשתינים?
"ענייני פרנסה, והיום שאחרי אבו מאזן. הם יודעים שהכל כאן נשען כרגע על כרעי תרנגולת, ולא ברור מה יקרה אחרי שאבו מאזן יזדכה. כשערפאת מת היה ברור שאבו מאזן יבוא במקומו, אבל היום אין יורש ודאי. זה מטריד אותם - האם תהיה פה מלחמת אזרחים כוללת על משילות, על מוקדי כוח, על השלטון, או שהעסק יעבור חלק ובצורה מסודרת. לנו יש אינטרס שתהיה כתובת, כי ביו"ש אין ואקום. אם לא יהיה שלטון מרכזי, זה ייפול לידיים שאתה לא רוצה".
מטרה של הטרור היהודי
אלבז לא עלה לכותרות בגלל הלחימה שלו בטרור הפלשתיני, אלא דווקא בשל המאבק שלו בטרור היהודי. הוא נתפס אצל פעילי הימין הקיצוני כמפקד שלא ממצמץ, והם סימנו סביבו עיגול והפכו אותו למטרה.
"זה הפך לאישי אחרי האירוע בעטרת בחודש יוני", הוא מספר. "זה התחיל עם חקלאי שהביא פרות שלו לחווה שהוא הקים מתחת לכפר אום ספא. אלה אדמות פרטיות, והפרות שלו היו מחרבנות ליד בית הקברות ואוכלות מעצי הזית של הפלשתינים. זה הרתיח את הפלשתינים, והתחילו שם זריקות אבנים הדדיות. אחרי לילה קשוח אמרנו לצבי לנתק את החווה ולקחת את הפרות שלו משם. הוא הלך, ואנחנו פתחנו מחדש את הציר. ואז בשבת בבוקר הוא חזר עם הפרות והחברים שלו לבית הקברות של אום ספא, והפלשתינים התעצבנו, ושוב התחילו חיכוכים ועימותים.
"אז החבר'ה מהחווה קראו לחברים שלהם, משהו כמו 60-50 אנשים שהגיעו על גבי 30 רכבים בשבת ב־12 בצהריים. הם הגיעו לאום ספא, החנו את הרכבים, ירדו לכפר והתחילו לשרוף בתים, לגלגל צמיגים בוערים לתוך בתים עם נשים וילדים. שרפו מכל הבא ליד. אם לא היינו שם, אנשים היו נשרפים. שבת בצהריים, אנשים נוסעים ושורפים. זה לא מסתדר לי בכלל.
"אום ספא זה כפר שקט. במשך שנתיים היו פה אפס אירועים. כלום. הגעתי לשם בעצמי, ראיתי מחזות אימה. פלשתינים ששרפו להם את הבתים, מבועתים מפחד. והאנשים האלה ששרפו ברחו ליד עטרת. הגעתי לשם, והוריתי לסגור את הצומת של עטרת, שכל הרכבים האלה שהיו באירוע לא יזוזו משם. אז הם פתחו את הש"ג של עטרת, בשבת, ונכנסו פנימה ליישוב.
"החלטתי לסגור את עטרת. אמרתי שכל מי שייצא - ייעצר. אני לא מתכוון להעלים עין, לעגל פינות או למצמץ לאור האירועים הקשים שראיתי שם. זאת חרפה מוסרית, וגם בושה בינלאומית מטורפת. כל העולם רואה את התמונות האלה של יהודים שורפים בתים. לאן הגענו? אמרתי שזה לא יקרה במשמרת שלי. שהעבריינים האלה ייעצרו.
"במוצ"ש עמדתי שם בש"ג, יחד עם השב"כ והמשטרה. אף אחד לא יצא עדיין. אמרתי להם שכל תושב עטרת שרוצה לצאת - שייצא, נסיעה טובה ושבוע טוב, אבל כל העבריינים שהגיעו - יבוא גרר וייקח להם את המכונית והם ייעצרו. בשלב מסוים הם הביאו אנשים והתחילו לעבוד בתקשורת, להפוך את הנרטיב, לטעון שהמח"ט שם מצור על עטרת, מתעלם מהפלשתינים ועוצר פה יהודים. 2,000 מעצרים ביצענו פה בשנתיים האחרונות, אינסוף פיגועים שמנענו - זה מתעלם מהפלשתינים? אבל לשרוף בתים עם אנשים - זה לא יקרה במשמרת שלי".
על החיכוך היומיומי: "כל אזרח שנזרקת עליו אבן, אני שואל אותו איפה זה קרה, אם הוא ראה או זיהה משהו. יש פה מאות נערים שזורקים את האבנים האלה, ויש לנו עליהם אפס מודיעין. יש פה 147 ק"מ של צירים בין כפרים. נער כזה לא צריך ללכת יותר ממטר מהבית שלו"
פעם היינו מדברים על קומץ. אתה מדבר כאן על אירוע עם עשרות אנשים. באירוע אחר בתורמוס עיא דיברתם על מאות אנשים, וכך היה גם בחווארה.
"זה מה שמדאיג. בעבר, כשהיינו מדברים על פשיעה לאומנית, זה היה עשרה אנשים שהתגנבו לכפר פלשתיני, ציירו מגן דוד, פינצ'רו רכב וברחו. אחרי אירועי חווארה חצינו קו פרשת מים. היו שם מאות אנשים ששרפו רכבים ושרפו בתים. ועדיין זה קומץ, כי חלק מהאנשים האלה לא גרים כאן בכלל. הם מגיעים מכל רחבי הארץ, וחלקם מתגוררים בכל מיני מאחזים לא חוקיים ובחוות לא חוקיות, וכשיש שעת כושר הם עושים את מה שהם עושים. והקומץ הזה מוציא שם רע לכל ההתיישבות, שרובה מלח הארץ".
קדמה לאירוע הזה תקרית נוספת בפברואר. זה קרה בלילה של הפיגוע שבו נרצחו האחים אלדד ויגל יניב בחווארה, ולאחר הפוגרום שנעשה בכפר.
"I walked around here because I knew it was a difficult and infuriating attack, and I thought bad things might happen here too. I drove around Givat Assaf and saw that everything was calm, people were with flags and everything was fine. I went on to Kochav Yaakov, people with flags and everything is fine. Then I get to Rimonim Square, and I see two people running with rocks in their hands toward Palestinian vehicles. I could have continued on my way, asked them to send the Border Police or the police, and ignored it. But they put me here, as the sovereign of the decree, in order to prevent such things as well.
"It takes courage, because you can ignore it. Then I got out of the car and ran over there, and I saw them throwing stones at Palestinian vehicles. I wanted to stop them, and they started rioting. I took a step back and photographed them, and when a Border Police patrol car arrived, I told them what had happened – that they had thrown stones and attacked me when I tried to arrest them. They were taken to a police station, Honenu lawyers arrived, and again the narrative was reversed.
Huwara, February 2023. Cars burned by settlers after the murder of brothers Hillel Weigel Yaniv, photo: Oren Cohen
"It's systematic. They put me in front, and they made up some story that I just stopped them. They made a video and showed the judge, saying that the brigade commander made it up, he lied, that they didn't attack anyone, that they were just arrested."
The court criticized you for this incident.
"The court saw it without the evidence. Without bringing the Palestinians who threw stones at them. No photos of us. It was very preliminary. Two weeks ago, I received a phone call from the police. Four months of investigation have ended, and the police recommend that these two be prosecuted."
With a tailwind from the coalition
The IDF and Shin Bet claim that the steep rise in the scope of Jewish terrorism stems from a tailwind received by senior government and coalition officials. This tailwind is also leading to momentum in the establishment of outposts that in the past were immediately evacuated, and today encounter difficulties due to the composition of the government and Minister Bezalel Smotrich's grip on the settlement issue as part of his role in the Ministry of Defense.
Elbaz says that during his first year in office, communities in his area were evacuated, but in the past year there have been no evacuations. "We evacuated some farms with canopies, but illegal outposts were not evacuated."
Do you even manage to talk to the extremists?
"At first I would talk to them, sit and try to listen to them and understand. They are under my responsibility. If God forbid someone is murdered there, that will be my failure, and therefore it is also important for me to have the security component of the people, to have a phone number, to know who to call so that we can come. But after the recent events and the violence, there is less dialogue, there is no one to talk to. People who burn other people — children, women inside homes — these are not people you can talk to."
So what should be done?
"They need to be treated, but it's multidimensional treatment. This requires the care of social work and the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Justice. We need to set up teams to deal with this, otherwise these people will take us into the abyss. The day is not far off when a house with a family will burn."
We have been there already.
"The Dawabsheh family is an easy preview of what will happen here if it happens now. Our greatest success here is that the Palestinian population is outside the circle of terror, and every friction of nationalist crime brings more and more Palestinians into the circle of terror, and at some point the match may come that will ignite this barrel of explosives that we are sitting on."
The defense establishment is investing enormous effort in trying to prevent this scenario. Elbaz says he is required to divert forces from activity against Palestinian terror to activity against Jewish terrorism. "It's a completely opposite world, and it's very difficult for soldiers to deal with it. That's why I put myself at the front. Let them yell at me that my children will die of cancer."
You realize that all this is meant to scare you, to deter you.
"Not me. As for me, they say it's already over, that he can't see with his eyes. They do everything so that our replacements will say that it's better not to mess with it. But that must not happen, we need a concrete moral backbone here. Do not move an inch. Believe in what you're doing and don't blink for a moment. When there are things that are bad and are a moral disgrace to the people of Israel, I will be there. I'm here to defend the people of Israel, the Jewish people, and I'm proud of what I'm doing, even when I pay a personal price for it."
You live here. It may hurt you in the future in promotion, in your career.
"If that's what hurts my promotion, I'll still be proud of myself, because I'm doing the right thing. When I fall asleep at night, I tell myself I'm doing this for my children and yours."
Still, you are a human being. When you arrived near Binyamin to console the family of Harel Massoud, who was murdered in the attack, my husband was shouted at that you were a murderer and a Nazi.
"It's not a lot of fun, but an hour after I was there, I took part in the thwarting of a shooting squad operating here in Silwad. proportions."
"Ordinary middle class family"
He was 43 years old. Lives in Rishon LeZion, married to Yael, father of three - the eldest is 16 years old ("in two years he will run around here"), the middle is 14, the youngest is 9. "An ordinary family, middle class like everyone else. Living in the center, working, partners in trouble."
A few weeks ago, when Shabbat was closed in the middle school, the family stopped by on Friday evening to eat Shabbat dinner together. A few minutes after they arrived, he received a report of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the village of Burqah. He quickly left the meal, saying he would be back in a few minutes. When he arrived at the scene, he discovered that the incident had turned violent, during which a Palestinian was shot dead. Subsequently, two Jews were arrested – Yehiel Indore and Elisha Yared – and several Palestinians, who were released to house arrest in the meantime.
Elbaz rejects claims that the IDF arrived too late, allowing the incident to escalate. "From the moment we got the report, within a few minutes we were on the ground," he says.
And what happened there?
"The incident is under police investigation. Let's wait for it to end."
For dinner he did not return. By 3 a.m., when he arrived at the base, his family was already asleep at home. In the coming year, he will have much more time for them: he will spend it as an apprentice at the National Defense College, after a long period of field work. "In these roles, you sacrifice the family," he says. "For 25 years that's what I've been doing: putting my body, my soul, my life, for the State of Israel, so that there will be a better life here."
On the sacrifice and compensation: "My wife earns more than me, and my friends laugh at me, but I don't care. I don't know how much I earn or if I'm in minus or plus. At 3 a.m., when you stop a terrorist just before he goes out to kill someone, it's a satisfaction that's hard to explain."
He is not disconnected from what is happening in Israel, from the internal rift. The intensive activity puts that aside, and according to him, has not yet penetrated the forces and activity. "I hope everyone comes to their senses. This situation doesn't do anyone any good."
Regarding the growing debate about the elites, the place of the periphery and its prospects, he points to himself: "I am proud of where I came from, of a modest family in Dimona. I never let that get in my way or stop me from moving forward. To me, it was never personal, and there are many commanders like me in the army, Mizrahim from the periphery, who came and succeeded."
And all the sacrifice is worth it?
"Of course. I wouldn't have done anything differently. The satisfaction you have, and the feeling that you are doing something meaningful for the people and the country – that's what motivates me. My wife earns a lot more than me, and my friends laugh at me too, but I never cared. I don't know how much I earn or if I'm in minus or plus. Being here at 3 a.m., when you stop a terrorist just before he leaves with an IED or a weapon to kill someone, is a satisfaction that is hard to explain."
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