Kissufim post was attacked by dozens of terrorists on the morning of Simchat Torah. The terrorists destroyed the surveillance cameras and infiltrated the front post, firing in all directions and killing every soldier they encountered.
For the first time, a team commander in the commando brigade, Capt. A., who was wounded by a bullet that penetrated his upper body, recounts in a conversation from the hospital about the six hours during which he and his 12 fighters engaged in an intense battle against the terrorists. A battle that claimed the lives of three of the fighters, and almost his own. The story of heroism complements the story of the sergeants, who described how they were almost murdered and kidnapped but were saved thanks to the fighters - the few versus the many.
"On Saturday morning, I woke up the soldiers and told them, 'Get up, war,'" says Capt. A. The fighters were reinforced in Huwara due to the attack that took place there the day before, but within a few hours they were already near the Gaza Strip. "At 10:30 A.M., we started moving on foot from Kissufim Junction to the community, next to which is the post. There were 12 of us in total, and there were many more terrorists. We entered the camp and reached the APC area, and realized the magnitude of the incident. There were a lot of dead there."
The terrorists entered and massacred the soldiers who were there, and the few who remained – mainly sergeants and spotters – barricaded themselves with wounded and dead in the war room, treating and treating the wounded with their meager forces. Hadar Treitel, one of the staff sergeants, said: "I called my mother - 'Tell everyone that I love you. I don't know if I'll get out of here alive. If not, when with bravery and a smile.'"
Precise and deadly
The heroic battle of the commandos lasted six hours. "We didn't have a minute of silence," says Capt. A. "We went room-by-room and cleared the post. The fighters were precise and lethal. One of our fighters grabbed a bullet with his weapon and replaced it. Another was hit by a bullet in his helmet, which broke his skull. Only after the battle did he tell us he'd been wounded. In the end, we reached a situation where the terrorists either died or ran away from us, and they gathered in one of the corners of the outpost."
"I woke up the soldiers and told them, 'Get up, war.'" Capt. A.,
The soldiers arrived at the girls' quarters after entering the war room where the soldiers had barricaded themselves, and were told that there might be female soldiers there. "We opened room after room in 'dry' so as not to harm Israelis. We shouted 'IDF, IDF' and went into a room where two girls were hiding. We went back to next door, which was locked. We kicked in the door and ran inside, and then we encountered a terrorist. We understood that it was fortified and that it was better to arrive by subterfuge, so we pulled back and prepared to flank."
"We left bodies behind"
When they went outside, an armored personnel carrier (Merkava) arrived at the scene. Amit Peled reached the back corridor, but suddenly a fire opened because they thought he had been cleansed. Amit was shot and killed instantly. "We returned fire, but the terrorists were on the roof and fired back. They killed Yonatan Savitsky z"l and Elad Sasson z"l and wounded two of us. I opened fire at the terrorist who was on the roof and shot us, and at that moment he hit me. My sergeant, B., who arrived by luck at that moment, took down the other terrorists."
The soldiers evacuated themselves to a protected area, with Captain A himself crawling in after being hit by a bullet that penetrated his shoulder, moved all over his upper body and exited his leg. Even though he was wounded, he continued to command the force and checked on the wounded and dead. For 25 minutes, they tried to contact a rescue force, and then realized that if they didn't get out, the wounded might die. "We realized we had to extricate ourselves. We get up, I stand and go, two carry Z. and we pull back, forced to leave the bodies behind."
Amit Peled, Elad Michael Sasson and Yonatan Savitsky, z"l, who fell during the fighting at Kissufim outpost,
The camp was cleansed, but was still in danger. Overtime passed, and another commando brigade arrived to rescue the fortified soldiers. Even on his way to Soroka Hospital, Captain A. continued to manage the incident, talking to his commanders to recover the bodies of his fighters. "I was afraid the bodies would be kidnapped, and it didn't happen because of guys who managed to get there."
Captain A is now in the hospital and will soon be discharged for rehabilitation. He read what the sergeants had written about the difficult incident, and even contacted them. Some even came at his request for the funerals of the fighters who were killed. "I have no doubt that if we hadn't fought, the terrorists would have reached them. I read what the sergeants wrote and contacted most of them. In retrospect, it gives meaning to the deaths of my warriors. Read what they wrote, know what they felt.
"You understand the significance of the death of Savitsky, Peled and Sean. I asked them to come to Savitsky's funeral, so that the parents could understand the significance of what their children did. During the funeral, his parents saw spotters A and S. They understood. It's not that the son fought in the Kissufim camp, important as it may be – he was killed in an encounter with terrorists who were in the room next to these girls. He saved them."
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