For two and a half years, we have been working with the regular Nahal Brigade. My team works every night, hundreds of nights. Five rounds in Gaza. This time in Lebanon. Nearly 400 days of reserve duty since October 7.
The sun is rising now. There is something about the sight of sunrise when you are returning after a full night outside the border, with companies of soldiers “on you,” and you know it worked as it should. You see the first light breaking over the mountains of northern Israel, and there is something in it that is hard to describe.
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Master Sgt. Avshalom in the Humvee mirror. The mission is similar, only the topography is different
Today, meaning yesterday, was identical to the last few days since we were called up again a month ago: Under the cover of total darkness, we went in, with the goal of extracting a Nahal Brigade force. With every operation, the alertness rises again. Even though after a few weeks there is already a kind of habit, we still need to make sure nothing goes wrong.
We are in Humvees and military trucks, with combat gear and night-vision equipment on us. Driving in the dark on a cold night is not exactly pleasant, but that is nothing compared with what the regular soldiers we are supposed to collect and bring home have been through.
On the way, as I scan the area, I think about the people we are going to meet. The moon casts white light over the abandoned villages along the road and over the fields that were here before all of this began. The guys waiting for us inside were probably in 11th grade when this war started. Maybe they had already managed to spend a little time in Gaza.
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Loading equipment and soldiers in southern Lebanon. You are their way back home, to their mother
During my regular service, we moved from training to a line and then back to training, and fighting in Lebanon sounded distant. They talked to us about it throughout our entire service. And now I am here, and it is different from the stories that frightened us. After countless days in Gaza, a person gets used to everything, even images of war. The mission here is similar to what we did there, only with different challenges and different topography.
Before the war, I ran a pre-military academy, and now my trainees are already being discharged. I have done almost an entire military service with them. More than once, I have run into one of them in this war, in staging areas or on the road. Sometimes we have even recognized the same locations with guys who had been where I was, or it turned out they had protected me from the air.
Tonight’s mission is long. Some things delay us. In the background are the cease-fire with Iran and a huge question mark over what will happen in the north. I leave politics in Israel when I cross the border, but thoughts about what is happening in civilian life are always there.
I am in the command Humvee, a medic.
The lead Humvee, with H. driving, knows the road with his eyes closed and passes over every bump along the way. S. commands the first Humvee, and the company commander, A., commands the convoy. I allow myself a half smile when I think about the partners I have had for two and a half years: one from Moshav Herut in the Sharon region, one from Susya, others from Tel Aviv, Retamim, Ein Vered, Ein Carmel, Meitar and more. I am from Ein Shemer, though for the past six months I have lived in Nir Oz. We have a lot of people from the cooperative settlement movement. It is probably a cliché, but I wish my team were leading this country.
We reached the destination. Very quickly, the soldiers climbed into the back of the Humvee with their heavy bags, and I remembered my own heavy bag from regular service. A small relief not to have to carry it in this war. Forgive me, all my brothers in arms, I love you. Loading up on the way out is always faster. The direction is home.
Since the first round in Gaza, I have avoided speaking with the regular soldiers more than necessary. Unfortunately, more than once, the same people who sat beside me in the cabin were here and then gone. One of them was Oshri Butzhak, of blessed memory, a team commander in the Nahal Reconnaissance Battalion, who fell on December 23, 2023, during a heroic battle in the Gaza Strip, at the head of his soldiers, while preventing a far greater disaster with his own body. He was 22. Since then, I try to attend every memorial service. We have too many people like that, so yes, I try not to talk with the soldiers, not to get to know them beyond giving a smile or a hand with the equipment. I have no desire to burden my heart unnecessarily.
We take a different route on the way back. Alertness.
There is something in Lebanon that has no parallel in Gaza: On the way back, the Galilee reveals itself to you. At first, there are small points of light in the darkness, and before exiting, you climb high and see the entire north spread out before you, community after community. Kibbutzim, moshavim, villages, cities. Points of light sparkling under the moon like a living map. And you understand why it makes no sense that bloodthirsty terrorists like Hezbollah sat there all those years. And you understand what you are protecting.
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Soldiers take their places on the vehicles before entering. They were in 11th grade when the war began
Just before the end, you wonder quietly, because the alertness has not yet dropped, whether someone down there, in those communities, slept better tonight. And if so, whether enough people are doing what must be done so we do not meet here again. The army comes to deliver military successes. There is no dispute about that. What has to happen afterward is no longer in our hands. It is a shame that is the case.
When we cross the border back, before another mission, we can breathe for a moment. We arrive at the staging areas and drop off the soldiers. They are smiling, happy. Sometimes some of them are singing.
You know they are on their way home.
And that is truly the great privilege of my role in this reserve service: to be beside them as they first enter the darkness, and then to know that you are their safe and fast way back to their mother and father, to a girlfriend, a boyfriend, friends.
The sun is now fully rising over the beautiful north. I hope this is our last time here. Not because I do not want to do my job, but because if we return again, it means someone did not do their part when they had the chance. Victory in the field is what we can give. Its reward must be a change in reality.
Master Sgt. Avshalom, 29, is a fighter in the operational mobility platoon of Battalion 933. He is currently serving in the reserves in southern Lebanon.