The IDF attacked a series of targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in the Al-Khyam area in southern Lebanon/IDF Spokesman
"When I went down to the Gaza Strip on October 8, the day after the massacre, I went down in civilian clothes," says Brigadier General Giora Inbar, "I was ashamed to put on a uniform.
Yes, I was ashamed.
Something broke inside me.
I understood the situation, I understood the helplessness, I understood what had happened, I was ashamed to put on a uniform." In an emergency, senior officers receive assistance and help in the form of an officer of their rank who has done the job in the past and sticks to them for assistance) of Brigadier General Israel Shomer, commander of the (finest) Reserve Division 146 on the northern border.
Like everyone else, Giura Inbar woke up in his home in Bata on Saturday morning, the October 7, to the sound of alarms and rockets.
"I thought to myself, what has already happened, Ben Gvir climbed the Temple Mount again?", he says, "I started making phone calls. There was complete shock. Rumors started about hostages in Bari, I said well, the IDF knows how to deal with this, they are closing the area, They isolate the house and break in.
What's the problem?"
Within a few hours he understood the problem. "It's not a home, it's not a kibbutz, it's kibbutzim.
And they were occupied by terrorists, who control fire on the space.
And the IDF is paralyzed, and my friends from the special units are telling me about the situation, and it's dark in my eyes," he says.
The next day, Sunday, he went down to Gaza.
"In a short time I realized that they didn't need me there. I also didn't believe there would be a maneuver. I'm also less familiar with the sector. Someone told me that they needed me in the Northern Command. That there was a serious fear that Nasrallah would send the Radwan force to do what the Nuh'ba did. That the enormous experience I have In the Northern Command it is required now. I picked up the phone to the command. They told me to come. But don't come to hang out among the soldiers.
We have a special role for you.
Division 146. And you will love Shumer (Commander Israel Shumer, the Ogdoner)."
Giora Inbar, 68 years old, on the one hand a leftist kibbutznik, on the other hand one of the most aggressive and daring officers the Northern Command has known.
Golanchik who did everything: Majd 51, commander of the Golani patrol, commander of Sheldag, commander of Givati, commander of the Liaison Unit for Lebanon (YKL) during the hottest period of the security strip, an officer who led countless classified operations deep in enemy territory, spent most of his time In the depth of the enemy's territory, he knows southern Lebanon better than Shikon Babylon, where he lives today.
"When I went down to the Gaza Strip on October 8, the day after the massacre, I went down in civilian clothes"/Uri Sela
I asked him about his age.
laughed
"When I left for the north, I told my wife that I had no idea when I was coming back. She laughed and told me that in a few hours I would be back at home after the Ogdoner I was going to would realize that they had sent him some hatyar and kick me out," he continues laughing.
Only on Thursday did they let him go free, after four full months, full of combat, offensive, defensive and aggressive activity.
They gave him a surprise party.
All the brigades, seven in number, of the division left him personal letters, and there was also a letter from the commander of the division. There was a bottle of wine from a northern winery. To you, and in reality he discovered a brave commander and a true friend."
Keeper is worth an extension.
He lives in Kfar Gaza.
"You'll understand," says Inbar, "on Saturday morning a guard gets up in his house surrounded by Noh'ba. He takes an ax, takes a knife and goes out to fight on the house. The wife and children are in the MMD.
In the process, he picks up the phone to his AGM officer and gives him an order to mobilize the whole division. Now. Immediately. Not to ask permission from anyone. Later Gordin (General North) confirmed it in retrospect. He tells the AGM officer that he doesn't know When will he manage to get to the north, but that everyone must mobilize now.
He understands the situation."
Division 146, a high-quality and powerful reserve division, is supposed to be ready for action seven days after the mobilization order. "The division was ready and set up on the border line within three days," says Inbar, "Shomer took command of the division in total Three weeks before. Against this background, I realized that I could help him. It helped me get out of the despair of October 7. I know the area, I know all the Hezbollah people. Jawad al-Tawil, the commander of the Radwan force in southern Lebanon who was eliminated Now, I tried to eliminate him several times at the time. I could write a book about Hezbollah Chief of Staff Ibrahim Akil.
In my time he was the commander of the Nabatia region.
Muhammad is their page and is much more independent than you think.
Putting the tents across the line was his initiative.
He does not always receive permission from Nasrallah and acts on his own accord."
In the first week after the massacre, panic prevailed in the political and military elite in Israel. The shock and astonishment of what happened in the south turned the possibility of this happening in the north as well, but on a different scale, into a real panic. Division 146 was quickly mobilized Shia and received responsibility for the line, a great many settlements," says Inbar, "the entire line is full of what we once called 'nature reserves' and today it is Shas'm, a tangled fortified area that is actually a Hezbollah compound that cannot be penetrated, in thickets and sometimes even underground .
Some of the Israeli forces also penetrate into our territory and become enclaves. A illusory and horrible reality."
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"They said that there is a serious concern that Nasrallah will send the Radwan force to do what the Nuh'ba did"/documentation on social networks according to Section 27 A of the Copyright Law
So what kind of army did you find there in the north, after a break of over twenty years, I asked.
"For the first few hours I was at a loss. It's technological congestion that's hard to deal with. I go into HML and say to one of the officers, listen, open up a map, I'll show you the axes of Hezbollah's penetration in the sector here.
He looked at me like a strange chicken.
from here?
what is a map
There are no maps.
Everything is digital.
Everything on screens, with crazy resolution, in great detail.
It's crazy.
I took some female officer aside and asked her to make me a list with all these main boxes of technology.
I'll start to understand what's going on.
It's just that I don't hear, but I want to understand."
"The first thing I learned," says Inbar, "is that I came to an excellent unit and that they can manage without people like me.
I realized that I have to make an effort to be relevant.
I sat in a situation assessment with the generals and realized that this is my place. At this point of the chemistry between the division commander and the generals, that's where the people are.
There I can help and influence and contribute from my extensive experience.
And I formed an excellent relationship with the commander of the guard division.
It is not trivial.
A new Ogdoner who needs to build leadership and suddenly someone older falls on him, whom everyone knows, every reservist and every settlement man and he attracts attention and suddenly there are two officers with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
But it worked great.
I learned when to take a step back, when to stand in the shadows, most of what I had to say I said to him with my own eyes."
"Basically," says Inbar, "I realized that the bottleneck is the connection between the crazy technology that jumped a generation and the basic principles of combat, soldiering and command.
One must be careful that the technology does not become a trap for the gullible.
One should not forget the basics.
The grenade throw, the short-range bursts, the enemy in the white of the eyes, the pursuit for contact.
I understood that technology supports and strengthens and makes a difference, but you must not develop a dependence on it.
And what I did was I shared with the guys my experience from fighting back in the day.
Yes, what we did in the security strip.
the onslaught
The lethality.
How to hunt the enemy.
How to use technology but not wait for it to solve the problem on its own."
"The skills in closing the circle with the Zik (as an armed anti-aircraft missile) among this generation are simply wonderful, you just have to make sure that they know how to kill the Hizballoonist who is now shooting at us from this window. And you have to hunt them all the time, to look for them, not to let them go. And this is what we have done in the last four months. Our division is responsible for killing between 90 and 100 Hizballoonists. The Ogdoner calls all the brigades every morning and asks to know how many terrorists they have killed in the past day.
That's how they work.
Every morning at six o'clock the brigade goes through the red knot, assessing the situation, preparations for the morning battle, who you killed last night and who you will kill by tomorrow.
I call it lethal defense, or killing defense."
"Our division is responsible for killing between 90 and 100 Hezbollah members"/Flash 90, Eyal Margolin
"Technology was in our hands on October 7," he says, "the complete dependence, focus and synchronization of all energies with the understanding that it will solve the problem. This is both dependence and reliance. And it erased all other basic capabilities. Standby forces, guerrillas with grenades And missiles did not fall on them, and not in the bunker.
Absorption standby.
Dawn Alert.
In Golani we learned that the most important thing is iron positions.
Hijacking post?
So what.
There are 4 positions that are manned even during the heaviest shelling.
The first is the ShG. We got used to running for cover because of the rockets and we believed that technology would solve everything. But it didn't. And because of the massive investment in technology, we neglected the training, the strength building of the infantry fighters, the tanks, the military work.
And so we came to the scenario that happened on October 7, which no one dreamed of in their worst nightmares that could happen."
So are you against technology? I asked, "Absolutely not," says Inbar, "Technology is very important and gives us enormous advantages, but it has to come in addition , not in place.
What we have done here in the north since October 8, is what needs to be done.
Just like that."
Talk to me about the reserves, I asked. "Listen, I discovered them.
It's an amazing experience," he says. "It's a different army.
Some have always underestimated them.
But the reserve is the jewel in the crown.
Did you see the article about Moscow on Channel 12?
So these are our guys.
4 consecutive months in uniform.
Leave everything in the middle of life and come.
I'm serious.
These people, some of them old and with families, had now been at least 3 months straight, most of the time in the cold and rain and mud, in the thicket.
Lived in tents, urinating in the water, defecating in the pot.
They are committed, they are determined, they are professionals, they are simply amazing.
They are the greatest discovery in this war.
Even for someone like me who was the commander of a reserve division.
It changed from end to end.
Perhaps the consensus around the war also helps this.
Yesterday we released a battalion of Nahlawim, the general says he is ready to stay another six months here with the fighters, the main thing is to win."
"It's not obvious. Everything aligns there. The religious and the secular, the freaks versus the Christians and the fanatics, all together. A melting pot. The reserve is the majority of the Jewish people and it is a national asset like no other.
I think that until recently, they constantly dismantled and canceled and simply destroyed this system in a systematic way, closed divisions and divisions, invested only in technology.
But the main thing is people.
And this experience moved me from the state of despair and depression on October 7 to great hope.
This is what restored my pride in the uniform.
And no, I don't intend to flow here with Netanyahu's victory declarations.
The "absolute victory" nonsense.
In October we suffered the worst loss in our history.
But what happened next brings great hope and a chance for something else.
Strengths I didn't know."
What burns Giura Inbar's bones the most and turns his stomach, is what he discovered in the north. "Listen," he seethes, "this is crazy neglect.
After the Second Lebanon, we signed an agreement that had quite a few achievements, mainly thanks to the destruction in Dahiya.
It had red lines, it had rules.
But from the first minute, we just didn't enforce it.
We allowed Hezbollah to generate power and weight here, to retake control of the south, to become the local sheriff, and I'm telling you that in some cases they didn't even mean it.
They didn't plan it.
They saw our weakness and poured in."
"Technology was in our hands on October 7"/Flash 90, Abed Rahim Hativ - Flash 90
I asked him what he meant.
"Nasrallah sent his chief of staff, Akil, to establish between three and five Hezbollah outposts on the fence.
Put up a flag, call it an observation post, without visible armament, in controlled areas.
Akil, I already told you that he is an independent type, see that it goes easily and set up 35 such points.
At first they thought we would respond, but we didn't.
on the contrary.
We staged scenes of wounded people on our side to appease them, suddenly there are phenomena of shooting at the feet of terrorists who cross into our territory and attack an IDF base, a policy of opening fire that decreed the army's inability to enforce anyone for anything."
"I asked commanders in the field how it happened.
How suddenly we find huge Hezbollah compounds on the fence, and now we have to dismantle them one by one.
Tell me where you live, until October 7th to fire one bullet you needed congressional approval.
I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean.
No one approved actions crossing the blue line, the sector commanders had to get permission for everything in advance, everything was sacrosanct to maintain the temporary peace, the full B&Bs, the false sense of security.
The leadership was hollow.
We let Hezbollah do whatever it wanted and there was always someone who said what, because of three shepherds who infiltrated, will we now set the whole north on fire?
And that's how we got to where we are."
And you suddenly enter all of this on October 8, I told him. "That's right," said Inbar, "and we are reservists in general, who were jumped there by surprise.
It's not like you brought the commando brigade.
And I tell you that we have changed the reality here, also across the line, and everything was our initiative.
And if they had allowed the business to be run this way since 2006, Hezbollah would not be here now."
What do you mean by your initiative, I asked. "It's simple," he explained, "there was no political directive.
We did not ask for approvals.
But we moved Hezbollah back at least 2 km. We came, entered and acted. We started slowly. From the military, it's a transition from routine to emergency, it's a complicated event.
It should take a week according to the orders.
The division has a Merkava Mark 4 tank brigade with everything it needs, there are 6 brigades, there is logistics, the tanks are generally in the south.
And all in all, three days after Order 8, we received responsibility for the most complicated section in the north.
People rented buses at their own expense.
Kibbutzim brought forklifts enough to load shells.
Bulldozers and bulldozers drove on chains from the seaport to the line.
Tens of thousands of people were ready, equipped, with suitcases, with camouflage colors and everything needed within three days."
And how does it look at the operational level, I asked. "I'm coming right into this situation," he repeats, "and there's a lot to do.
Some people are rusty, some don't know the area.
And in the beginning there was tuition.
And Hezbollah does not give gifts.
They are not suckers.
We had three deaths in the first few days.
You go up to a height line, you grab.
You don't know the terrain, you are hijacking.
But the guys reset, rubbed, came to their senses and the division entered into a unique defense concept that I call "lethal and killing defense".
We invented this term in the field.
Listen, defense is not fun.
Defense is the hardest fight.
You depend on the enemy.
You divide the space into three: the security space, this is the distance from you towards the enemy as far as you can see and hit the enemy, before he attacks you.
The holding space, which is the line of defense you sit on, and the rear space, which is the space behind you that you protect and you must not allow it to be damaged or penetrated.
And I tell you that because of the neglect, the disregard and the concept of containment and addiction to silence,
The entire border line in the north lacks any security space.
It's amazing, but that's the way it is."
Explain, I asked.
"Our security space was supposed to be everything from the border line to the north, towards the Litani. But Israel allowed Hezbollah to return there, to gnaw and advance and create a situation where the entire security space was erased. Hezbollah is sitting on fences. To my horror, some of the fences are now a wall, which mainly limits us , because we have no idea what is happening on the other side. And there are 35 Hezbollah outposts in the fence area, and there are endless snipers, some of which are penetrating in our direction, and the IDF is chained up against all of this in landing positions. The containment that has been here for the past decade, and perhaps more than that, is a scandal You understand that all Hezbollah has to do is sneak a force into the wall, attach a charge, move away, on the night of the penetration, get close to the wall, rain rockets on the entire sector so that it goes into absorption alert just like it happened in the Gaza Envelope, blow up the wall and flow in while everyone is in the protected area. And you don't see all of this approaching you, because they are hidden by the wall."
"How come we suddenly find huge Hezbollah compounds on the fence?"/Reuters
I know some senior officials who actually liked this wall, I told him, billions were invested in it.
"Listen, I asked Gadi Eisenkot when he came to visit us what was the matter. Some of this happened during his time. He told me that it was true, but what was approved at the time was a smart wall, with observation and sensing means and cameras and the possibility of shooting and explosions and all the technology in the world."
How did you deal with the situation, I asked.
"We started everything from scratch," says Inbar, "we recreated the security space. First of all, we shot at everything that moved. We used diverse means of collection beyond the line and fences. We used everything the IDF and technology had to offer, but also a secret weapon."
What a weapon , I asked. "The reservists," says Inbar, "the guys filled the front with their inventions, their developments, their crazy creativity.
Automatic cameras, crazy drones that both collect and attack.
Everyone brought everything possible from the company they work for, or from home, or the devil knows where.
And you start dividing tasks into divisions that never existed.
Like, for example, the neutralization of the anti-aircraft guns. All this confusion, which Hezbollah uses to create war complexes, we simply neutralize it. As soon as a concrete threat is identified, the guys of the Carmeli Brigade act punctually, they built big catapults, huge rockets that threw jerrycans of diesel fuel mixed with fuel per s.m., you shoot a lighting bomb at it and it lights up.
And there are no rocket launchers. And they invented drones and shooting drones, and a competition began between everyone who dismantles more rocket launchers and who kills more Hizbollaners.
And it's not stories.
It's numbers.
Our division lost seven fighters and killed at least 90 terrorists.
Everyone has a picture and companion.
And there were also casualties from the Hamas battle in Gizra, who are Palestinians.
I don't count them."
"I told you," he says, "only a small part of what we did.
And you will know that the commanders, the most senior, from the division commander to the south, were ahead.
with the reserves in the thicket.
We have cleared the cut here miles ahead.
We destroyed infrastructure.
We also used fraudulent and dummy activity.
And now this place can be properly protected.
And it's not like we got this mission.
We took it upon ourselves and reported in retrospect.
And everyone was happy.
And it only sharpens the insight of what has been here all these years.
What neglect."
So what's the situation now, can the residents be returned?, I asked. "Make no mistake," warned Inbar, "Yes, we destroyed a large part of Hezbollah's infrastructure along the Gizra and moved them back.
But they are really not suckers.
They change activity, upgrade capabilities, increase the ranges of Cornet missiles, they know the job.
But what is important, most important, is that the Redvan force flies off the fence.
they are not here
Most of the villages near the fence that Hezbollah used as bases are now empty.
They really don't win, on the contrary."
"I say we have changed the reality here, even across the line"/Official website, no credit
What insight do you come home with, I asked.
"With the huge gap between what I found for the IDF, and the political level.
In every field and every subject, from loyalty and collegiality onwards.
The Chief of Staff arrives, the commanding general arrives, you hear them, everything is transparent, everything is clear. Despite what happened on October 7th, the trust in the command is complete and absolute. There are no faces and no surprises. What the runner knows, we know. And the discipline is absolute. And in the end, this Not easy. There were a long line of generals here in the North, all of them alpha lions, who realized in four months that they are second priority, they are on the margins, they receive less means and less attention and less of everything, in order to allow the maneuver in the South to succeed, so they understand the event, create tasks and operations for themselves them quietly, while they change reality."
What was it like to return home from the Lebanese thicket to the Babylonian thicket, in the heart of Tel Aviv, I asked.
"I don't know, I've barely been here a day," he laughs, "My wife, who didn't believe that they would accept me in the north, asked me now why I'm being released, here in the rear everyone is upset. But seriously, I'm thinking about the reservist who is coming home, who gave 4 months in the mud and rain , full of fighting spirit in the right way, turns back and looks at what is happening in the country and what does he see? No one defines a goal, the day after. We have spat blood for 4 months and we don't know where it is going, there will be a big, small maneuver, what is the goal, how long will we stay. The reservist now lives with rightists and leftists, religious and secular, and did not quarrel with them, on the contrary, they were brothers, and he sees in front of him a group of politicians who all day quarrel over honor and thrones, distribute budgets in a promiscuous, even criminal way, knocking over the people who deserve everything, the residents of the Otaf , the evacuees, the injured, the reservists, destroying the strategic relationship with the US, even though they know how much we depend on it.
You hear the announcements of the so-called political rank and know that everything is for narrow political needs, or some interest.
Stupid statements that serve all kinds of sectors but do not advance us anywhere.
And what upsets me the most is the matter of evacuating the population."
Would you not evacuate the residents of the north? I asked. "No.
This is a terrible mistake.
And you are talking to a man who, from the time he was a military officer until his appointment as a division commander, was in Lebanon. The whole time. I lived there. Grapes of Wrath and accountability and Nahariya and Kiryat Shmona are crushed by Katyushas and bargaining attacks in Ma'alot and Kash and in Meshgav with and buses explode in Avivim and Margalit, and children are murdered in Ma'alot, and even Once they did not evacuate residents.
Never.
I did not understand.
Leave them to the lack of Hezbollah's Burkan rockets?
"What we did was we played into Hezbollah's hands. They shoot at the settlements because they are empty. We helped Hezbollah create the security strip for us. Now every reservist with us who returns home feels like a failure, that we didn't return the residents to their homes. There are no criteria at all for their return. What are the conditions for their return? Anyone Have you thought about it? Conquering Beirut? Controlling the Awali? What is the test? And I tell you that today it is possible to go through a political process for a solution that will restore Resolution 1701, with a bonus: that it will also happen on the ground. Everyone is looking for a ladder to get off the tree. Nasrallah has already lost the primacy to Sanwar. There is If he has territorial claims on points of dispute along the line, it is possible with a few insignificant concessions to reach an agreement while it is clear to everyone that one Hizballah with a weapon does not enter the demilitarized territory. It will be cheaper than entering into a round of fighting in the end of which we will reach exactly this agreement."
Leave the order for a moment, would you return the residents to their homes today in Metula, in Margaliot, in all the settlements of the line?
"Yes, unequivocally. The October 7th vision of commando forces crossing and occupying settlements in our territory will no longer happen in the foreseeable future. We have removed that threat. They can fire rockets, but that's something else. Take Kiryat Shmona and Nahariya. Kiryat Shmona They decided to evacuate and evacuate. Nahariya has a strong mayor, Ronan Marley. He told me from day one that he does not evict anyone and that we will not interfere with him. This is leadership. Nahariya has been bustling and active since then and the educational institutions are open and it is the focal point of the north. And it is not that it is not threatened. It is also exposed from the sea side. In the first days, we placed tanks there to protect it."
"Despite what happened on October 7, the trust in the command is complete and absolute" / IDF spokesman
How do you see the current situation in the country, I asked him at the end.
"My title for our conversation," he said, "is from despair and depression to hope. What we have seen here since the disaster until now is the people of Israel at their greatest, but I think that if the government does not reset the hope I am talking about will turn into rage. The reservists will not agree to lose everything we have done , mainly by them, because of the lack of leadership. These people sacrificed everything. Do you know what it's like to be independent, own a small business, and suddenly leave everything for four months in the thick of the enemy? And do you know what it's like to suddenly realize that all this was done for some political conjuncture? And suddenly find out who raised the age of exemption from reserves and the period of service in reserves and regular service and continue to put all the burden on those people all the time?"
"There is something else," he emphasizes, "the part where the IDF is not allowed to operationally investigate the events.
What is?
Do you know how many investigations we did every week in the division?
It's a life saver.
Every situation and every event should be investigated as quickly as possible in order to learn lessons.
And you get the feeling that your commanders are being attacked not only by the enemy, but also from within."
On Thursday he took off his uniform.
Got a small cell in the division's command warehouse.
"I am ready to maneuver in Lebanon" he told Ogdoner, a guard, before they parted.
"More than anything that has happened in these months, from this shocking experience I had with our wonderful guys, I return with the friendship I made with Schumer. I was his iron couple and he was mine. Despite the age differences, there are always bad guys here."
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