1.
The rattling of a tractor erupted from the gray sky at the base of Palmachim. After that, narrow-bodied and long-winged, the "Zik" appeared in all its glory – a UAV that it or others like it would launch in a few hours a deadly and accurate missile at a Middle Eastern target. The world will once again drop its jaw at the intelligence and vulnerable capabilities that few countries in the world have.
A UAV, meaning "remotely manned aircraft", is what until recently was called a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) in our places. The name change reflects a change of attitude. The UAVs are not some side satellite in the Air Force, but a substantial mass of Israeli power. The Israeli Air Force carried out 30,<> airstrikes during the three months of the war, most of them by the Zik, Kochav and Eitan family of UAVs.
The best UAV squadrons are sent to command, including fighter pilots. They and the other operators treat their missions as flying in every respect. "I just flew over Gaza," the commander, Lt. Col. R., tells us, who has just stepped out of the wagon.
Zeke ignites in his eyes, and it is clear that he deviates from every moment of fighting. Until recently, he was an F-16 navigator - to whom he will return after leaving duty. In the meantime, the experience he is acquiring in the unmanned division will only contribute to his advancement in the force.
The 161st Squadron he manages looks and behaves exactly like those of manned aircraft. Apart from the planned missions, there are bounces, training, training, coordination, operations rooms and flight overalls. These are fighter jets in every respect, with only their cockpit on the ground.
The surgical capabilities of the UAVs are much more suited to the nature of the current campaign, than those of heavy and fast fighter jets. The Epps, 15, 16 or 35, drop heavy bombs on buildings and return safely to base. The Zikim, on the other hand, are slow, equipped with many small missiles, can rotate around the same area for hours, and therefore carry out a large number of attacks in a single sortie, lasting even 20 hours. UAVs have amazing contractual capabilities in portrait, as well as other tools to assist troops. In short, science fiction is completely here.
R. himself killed "only" 33 terrorists. "I'm also busy managing the squadron," he apologizes, proud of his pilots who killed more than him. The videos he presents show imaginary coordination with ground forces, as close as never before. The public was exposed only to the last seconds of the war slogan, "Two, three, sh-gar." But in reality, a joint pursuit from the ground and from the air, after a lone terrorist, can last as long as an hour and two hours.
From the "cockpit" in Palmachim, the operator speaks directly to ground forces in the field. They direct it, and sometimes it is them, where the accuracy of meters must be hit. "I will not take any chance for the security of our forces. That's why so much effort is put in, even when it comes to one suspect."
He uploads another video. A terrorist is hiding in a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood. A tank fires a shell at the house, but the suspect quickly flees to another house. The tank cannot enter the alley leading to it. The terrorist emerges and escapes, and all attempts to harm him fail. Finally, an F-16 pops up to drop a heavy bomb. The latter does its job, and the terrorist escapes outside. "Zik" launches his armament, and the terrorist returns his soul to Allah.
Using various methods, R.'s squadron killed thousands of terrorists, "and the counting continues." The claims of cases in which ground forces asked for assistance and received no response sound far-fetched to him. "I have no right to leave one terrorist alive if he endangers the forces," R. explains the operational rationale.
To show me how satisfied the ground forces are, he calls the front squad, where one of Golani's battalion commanders is located, in surprise. With the noise of the radio and commands in the background, the battalion commander says to R.: "Thank you for your trust. We've been together for a long time and in a good way. The activity is complex and complicated, maybe there were mishaps here and there, but they [the drones] kill all the terrorists there in the Gaza Strip, and over time we learned and improved the work methods." In his eyes, the cover and backing of R. and his subordinates is extraordinary.
IDF Spokesperson
The recordings and videos show that the cooperation between air and ground is spectacular. This is a war that takes place in particularly difficult terrain. From the ground or from the air, everyone sees the battle picture from their own angle. In general, the successes are enormous. Sometimes there are gaps. There were cases in which ground forces actually asked the Zik to delay an attack for some reason. In retrospect, it turned out that there was no justification for the delay, and an investigation was conducted into the miss.
Another challenge that has exacted a heavy price is damage to our forces. The pilots are very careful when asked for assistance. In one case, the Zik had already launched the missile on its way to its target. Suddenly, the ground command officer warned that two soldiers were missing, and that there was concern about a report. The pilot diverted the munitions at the last minute, but after another moment it became clear that all the soldiers were actually there and it was possible to attack, so that the target was locked again and another missile was launched and hit successfully.
"Out of many thousands of attacks by drones and helicopters, there may have been mishaps and misunderstandings here and there," says R. There is a point in his words. There may also be borderline situations. Someone will determine that the suspect is not endangering the soldiers, and an anonymous person will say that he is.
These incidents appear to be the source of claims circulating late last week about situations in which air forces refrained from assisting fighters. R., for his part, doesn't know of any. Both he and the IDF Spokesperson are asking for precise details, not general allegations, so that they can be investigated and corrected. One serious complaint was conveyed to his friends by a combatant in the Gaza Strip before he was sadly killed himself.
In a WhatsApp message, he wrote: "For two hours we identified an unarmed terrorist watching us... He refused for two hours to shoot, claiming there were innocents nearby. All of course in a clearly combat environment, where anyone found is automatically framed. After fierce arguments on the radio, he just didn't fire. Then (the friend) received a bullet to the center of the face from the exact same place as the enemy observer. He died for nothing. Not any other story."
This testimony reached Sarah Orit Strock. On its basis, at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, she asked Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, "Are there pilots who refuse to cooperate with the ground forces for conscientious reasons?"
Toledano didn't like what he heard. "That's a terrible question," he replied. His somewhat brazen statement set the stage for another campaign of lashing out at the settlement server.
2.
A small, single and innocent girl was Orit Strock when she first stood and asked. A 16-year-old girl, a student at the prestigious Lida high school from the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood, an anomaly in Jerusalem's elite institution.
The questions led her to the late Rabbi Chaim Druckman, in whose house she repented. Since then, Strzok has gone with her beliefs and doubts, even when others don't like them. With her husband Avraham, she settled in the Jewish Quarter of Hebron. At the same time as the birth of 11 children, she became involved in the community's public activities.
Minister Orit Strock, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
As the years passed, so did the scope of its activities. It began to deal with issues relating to all settlements in Judea and Samaria. Thus, for example, she established the Yesha Human Rights Organization as a counter-response to left-wing organizations that cared only about Arab rights. She fought the "special procedures" initiated by then-attorney Shai Nitzan against residents of Judea and Samaria. She then sued the many police officers who beat girls and boys during the evacuation of homes in Amona in 2006.
The next stage was extra-parliamentary activity in the Knesset. Strzok was behind the Eretz Israel Caucus, which she would establish after every election campaign. It made sure to include coalition and opposition representatives from the right and left in the lobbies – a line that has characterized its activity ever since, in contrast to the image they have built for it. She herself stayed behind the scenes.
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Working in the Knesset, and even earlier in Hebron, opened doors for her through the high windows. Both in the army and in the political system they have come to know a woman with a backbone and sharp thinking, devoid of personal interests. Several times a week she would take buses, about an hour and a half each way, from her home in Hebron to Jerusalem and back. The devotion, almost asceticism, only increased the appreciation for her. She, for her part, used the listening ear to promote the issues on her agenda. Not herself.
When the baby Shalhevet Pass was murdered in Hebron in 2001, Benjamin Netanyahu, then a concerned citizen, felt a moral obligation and called to express condolences. In 2014, after the three youths were kidnapped, she called Naftali Bennett on Saturday and offered to return those released in the Shalit deal to prison. Bennett went with the idea to Netanyahu, and the proposal was implemented.
Strzok continued to ask her unconventional questions even when she became a Knesset member in 2021 (she also served as a MK from 2015-2013), and then as Minister of Settlements in 2023. In fact, she felt that her duty to go with her truth only grew with the roles.
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As a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after Operation Guardian of the Walls, she asked IDF representatives countless times why materials known to be used by Hamas to arm themselves were brought into the Gaza Strip. She rummaged through protocols, confronted the officers with things they or their predecessors had said in the past, and asked for answers that never came.
Her campaign of questions, the only woman in a male-dominated security world, continued when she entered government. Strzok, we are revealing here, was the only one in the incumbent Israeli leadership to prematurely warn of the strengthening of Hamas. At a time when the entire political and security leadership, in the coalition, the opposition, and the army, fell into Hamas's anesthesia trap – and Toledano, as head of the Southern Command, was one of them – Strzok warned a month before the war that "the day of order will come, when Hamas decides."
This is the language of one letter she sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Galant, National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi, and all members of the cabinet and the government. Strzok, as the song says, stood and shouted why – why Israel was bringing into Gaza "dual-use materials that will return to us as warheads on missiles in the next conflict" (letter dated 5 September 9).
In the same appeal, a month before the war, despairing of the apathy of her colleagues, Strzok flattens her attempts to wake up Netanyahu, Galant and the cabinet.
"This letter was sent to you with great pain. The issue of bringing dual-use materials into the Gaza Strip was raised by me at a government meeting on 14 May 5. I explained and proved at the time that the previous government had changed the procedures and allowed the extensive entry of dual-use materials into the Gaza Strip, and I said that I expected us to change this erroneous decision. Warned... I handed over the data to the Cabinet Secretary... The prime minister said the matter would be examined by him and the cabinet.
"I also raised the issue in an orderly meeting with the head of the National Security Council, to whom I also entrusted the same data, and in a letter to the defense minister. To the best of my knowledge (and I would be very happy to apologize if I'm wrong) - nothing has changed. I ask you to make sure that now the data is seriously examined, and that appropriate decisions are made."
From April to September '23, Strzok warned at least 15 times about the strengthening of Hamas. "Most of the weapons and ammunition of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip are manufactured inside the Gaza Strip. Most of the materials used in this production come to Gaza from Israel," she writes to Gallant in June '23.
She notes that the lifting of restrictions began during the Bennett-Lapid era. "In January 2022, Israel allowed the entry of white cement into Gaza. In February 2022, steel sheets were allowed. In December 2022, fiberglass was allowed. During 2022, a series of medical and communications equipment were allowed, which until then had been on the dual-use materials list. There is no doubt that these dual-use materials were exploited to renew the armament and military buildup of the terrorist organizations in Gaza and to rehabilitate the offensive capabilities of the terrorist organizations against us..." By the way, she received the information from the former head of the National Security Council, Meir Ben-Shabbat, who was also among the warnings, and from Misgav Institute staff, in a meeting she initiated with them in order to study the subject.
But her criticism not only went backwards, but also aimed at the government of which she is a member. "In January 2023 (Netanyahu's government), engines for boats were allowed into the Gaza Strip. In May 2023, spare parts for motorcycles were allowed... The reservoirs that are filling up are waiting for the day of the order, which will come, when Hamas decides. I would like to understand who decided on this policy, and what are the reasons for it," she added.
And more: "The question of why additional and frequent actions are not taken to prevent and damage to the armament remains unanswered. I would like to ask her now, too... With the formation of the new government, it was requested that this policy of the Bennett-Lapid government be stopped, in order to prevent further armament, or at least minimize it. But the policy has not changed."
And so on and so forth, Strzok didn't let go. She asked for meetings, went on WhatsApp, and sometimes, when she was really desperate, she lectured at government meetings. Netanyahu would call this "Orit Strzok's special procedure." He appreciated her, though he didn't do much. Not only him. The security establishment within the government smeared it. The ex-outsiders, especially if they lean to the left, rolled over her with characteristic patronage. Strong religious women, with prominent headscarves, throw them off balance.
"Disgraceful incitement," former Prime Minister Yair Lapid – one of those who allowed dual-use materials into Gaza – called Strzok's question at a cabinet meeting on Sunday. He and others are subjecting her to character assassination, which in any case of another woman would be defined as misogyny.
But the iron woman of the right does not break, nor does it change her ways. In contrast to the painting circulated about her in the media, Strzok is one of the government's unifying and effective figures. On the wall of her office in the Jerusalem Technological Park hangs an appreciation notice from the heads of the working settlement.
"We thank Sarah Orit Strock from the bottom of our hearts," wrote Eitan Broshi (former secretary general of the Kibbutz Movement), Danny Ivri (head of Misgav's council), Nir Meir (current secretary general of the Kibbutz Movement), Amit Yifrach (secretary general of the Moshavim Movement), and many others. The reason for the surprising recognition from the left is the relentless push for decisions and legislative changes, led by Strzok in favor of settlement throughout the country.
From Simchat Torah onwards, at a heavy price, Strzok is already getting the government's attention. At the emergency meeting convened by Netanyahu at the height of the holiday, she was, at her request, the first to speak. It called for the complete crushing of Hamas's capabilities in Gaza, both military, governmental and budgetary. It demanded full demilitarization, stressed that rehabilitation should not be allowed before demilitarization, and made several more proposals, which unfortunately have not yet been adopted.
The conclusion is clear. Strzok's questions are some of the most justified there are. If, instead of attacking it, the generals, officers and commentators joined its vigilance, there are good reasons to think that the disaster of the war would have been spared.
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A senior military source said in response: "After an initial investigation, the claim that the air force made a decision not to assist the ground force is incorrect. This is a decision made by officers in the brigade. On the contrary, officers on the ground attest to unprecedented cooperation between air and ground forces in the war. The incident is being investigated, preliminary information has been presented to the family. Upon completion of the investigation of the incident, it will be presented to the family and then to the public."
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