In footage released by Hamas, terrorists were seen running toward the Namer with its top hatch open. One climbed onto the vehicle, detonated an explosive device, and fled. Miraculously, the device was faulty, and the soldiers were unharmed.

The phenomenon of soldiers in armored vehicles forgoing protection due to extreme heat is not uncommon, a former senior officer told Israel Hayom, citing repeated malfunctions in such APCs, which are based on the Merkava tank chassis and have been used intensively over the past two years.

"Like babies in a car"

"It was a miracle from heaven, 12 people were saved there. It was an incident exactly like the one with the combat engineering vehicle that was hit in June, when Hamas killed 7 soldiers. I spoke to an officer, and he told me, 'You can't stay inside,'" the officer said.

"Every summer, we talk about how you can't leave babies in a closed car. Here, soldiers are sitting in an armored vehicle, the air conditioners don't work because for two years this vehicle has been driven relentlessly, and they have to open the 'hatch' (the Namer's top hatch – H.G.). It doesn't cool, but it at least lets in air. Imagine what a soldier goes through, wearing a flak jacket and helmet in 30°C (86°F) heat, when the temperature inside doubles."

The Namer's air conditioners, defined by the IDF as "life-support systems," are maintained by an external company. However, the vehicles' round-the-clock operation in Gaza has required a different level of maintenance.

Video: The Hamas video showing the top hatch open

Since the war began, the Logistics Corps has deployed field teams – soldiers in every sense – who operate under fire to repair vehicles. Air conditioning systems are replaced in the field when a malfunction is identified, and the faulty system is sent for repair.

The IDF, it must be said, is making significant efforts to address issues with armored vehicles, but the conditions are far from simple, to say the least, due to the prolonged war, and they appear unable to fully meet the challenge.

Increasing malfunctions

For example, the Givati Brigade has been operating Namers in Gaza since the war began, enduring scorching heat and dust in summer and mud and rain in winter. The Golani Brigade has maneuvered in both Lebanon and Gaza since October 7.

The vehicles, which were never designed for such intense strain, are likely accumulating more malfunctions over time. The IDF claims it has not seen widespread issues with air conditioning systems and that any vehicle with a malfunction in life-support systems is supposed to be taken out of service.

Additionally, opening the top hatch is not considered proper under army procedures, even if the air conditioner is not functioning. However, the IDF acknowledges it cannot fully control soldiers who choose to operate such vehicles with faulty air conditioners.

Forces in the field face an impossible decision: disable a vehicle and halt operations due to logistical challenges or operate against guidelines. Many commanders choose to proceed with operations despite the challenge and danger.

"We're not allowed to enter buildings because they're booby-trapped, and we can't enter the APCs because the systems don't work, so what are we supposed to do?" soldiers told their acquaintances. "We're not asking for luxuries, but this is a basic need for fighting in the summer months. You can't fight like this."

The senior officer believes this reflects a known pattern in the ground forces, where soldiers are expected to operate in any condition without recognizing that this harms operational capability.

"A flawed approach"

"The Ground Forces' readiness model assumes that the more you push a soldier – the tougher he's supposed to be. He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep. This is a flawed approach that has been recognized as such worldwide for years. In the Ground Forces, everything is possible – a soldier can go two weeks without sleep, his vehicle can go two weeks without maintenance.

"This is foolish. In the end, there are only a few tens of thousands of combat soldiers in the IDF, the spearhead. They need portable air conditioners and the best equipment available to operate."

In response, the IDF Spokesperson issued the following statement: "Following field inspections, no untreated air conditioning issues are known, and no specific cases have been reported for handling. If malfunctions exist, they are addressed in real time. The vehicles are under close supervision and frequent maintenance. Each battalion has additional air conditioning systems to provide solutions. In case of a malfunction, the IDF works with civilian companies to obtain suitable air conditioning systems.

"Due to the extreme heat and the dusty, sandy operational environment, malfunctions in air conditioning systems occasionally occur. There is no gap in the Southern Command regarding the availability of solutions or the systems' readiness. Technical personnel are responsible for replacing faulty systems, which are repaired in civilian industry."

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The names of the fallen soldiers, four fighters from the Netzach Yehuda Battalion and one fighter from the Northern Brigade, were cleared for publication: Staff sergeant Meir Shimon Amar, 20, from Jerusalem; Sergeant Moshe Nissim Frech, 20, from Jerusalem; Staff Sergeant Noam Aharon Musgadian, 20, from Jerusalem; Staff sergeant Moshe Shmuel Noll; and Sergeant First Class (res.) Benyamin Asulin , 28, from Haifa. Fourteen additional fighters were wounded in the incident – two seriously, six moderately and six lightly. They were evacuated to hospitals and their families were notified.

Incident details

The fighters were struck when their unit was carrying out an offensive operation in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. The soldiers were ambushed by an array of improvised explosive devices while operating in the area, and Northern Brigade forces were rushed to evacuate the wounded from the field. During the evacuation attempt, fire was opened toward the forces, wounding some of the fighters. The IDF continues to investigate the details of the incident.

The Netzach Yehuda battalion, which is a special unit that is tailored for the needs of religious conscripts, stated, "With a broken and tearful heart, we join in the mourning of the families over the death of their sons, brave fighters who risked their lives and sanctified God's name for the People of Israel. The Netzach Yehuda Battalion entered the maneuver a few days ago for another round in a battalion combat team to fight in northern Gaza Strip."

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The IDF is changing its rules of engagement policy in Judea and Samaria and will now allow soldiers to shoot stone-throwers and firebombers after the act and even as they are running away, the Kan 11 public broadcaster reported on Sunday.

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The new rules of engagement have been conveyed to combat troops in recent weeks. According to the new policy, any live fire engagement must occur within the "area of combat," in other words, immediately after the incident and only when soldiers deem their lives to be in imminent danger.

The IDF decided to implement the change around one month ago, with the main change being permission to shoot weapons and ammunition thieves from IDF bases and firing ranges. The new policies will also give IDF troops stationed along the Egyptian border better tools to combat illicit smuggling activities.

The exact rules of engagement are considered classified and cannot be detailed in full, and it's important to note that soldiers are still bound to a certain arrest protocol. Now, however, they will be able to engage smugglers and thieves.

Im Tirtzu, a Zionist non-governmental organization, has been lobbying to change the army's rules of engagement on behalf of IDF troops.

"We welcome the critical change to the rules of engagement, after more than a decade in which the hands of IDF soldiers were tied," said Im Tirtzu Chairman Matan Peleg.

"Now, soldiers will be able to shoot stone-throwers even if they are running away – as long as they are in the field [of combat]. This is a welcome change that will help [IDF] forces put an end to the out-of-control stone-throwing that has become rampant in recent months. We hope this isn't just another directive … that will then be neutered in operational briefings, and that IDF soldiers will receive backing all the way, not just from their commanders but from the Military Advocate General," said Peleg.

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Monadel Nafe'at was the last of the six prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison to be apprehended. The 25-year-old Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative was caught in a raid by the Border Police counter-terror unit. Nafe'at was not a big-name figure. He has been in administrative detention since 2019 on charges of weapons dealing and was in talks with military prosecutors over a plea bargain that would have seen him released within a few months. He wasn't on the scale of Zakaria Zubeidi, another of the escaped prisoners, and if he hadn't taken part in the prison break, then he would probably never have made the headlines.

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Ten years ago, Nafe'at was also an unknown security prisoner. He had been arrested in February 2011 for throwing a firebomb and was jailed for 11 months. However he was released in December of the same year during the second tranche of the Schalit deal, in which a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for the kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

Nafe'at is not the most dangerous prisoner to have returned to terrorist activities, even if he was the latest one to become a headline name. From time to time we hear about a terrorist attack, a terrorist plot, or the transfer of money to Hamas, attributed to "prisoners released in the Schalit deal."

In 2017, then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that 202 prisoners released in the Schalit deal had been re-arrested by security forces. Today, some 70 of those released are being held by the Israel Prison Service.

In the decade since the return of the Israeli soldier, 10 Israelis have been killed in attacks carried out directly or indirectly by prisoners released in the Schalit deal: Israel Police Chief Supt. Baruch Mizrahi was killed in a shooting near the Tarkumia checkpoint, while travelling with his wife and four children to celebrate Passover; the three teenagers Naftali  Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah, who were kidnapped and murdered  in 2014 in an incident that led to the launch of Operation Protective Edge; Danny Gonen, who was murdered in 2015 at a spring near the Dolev settlement; Malachi Rosenfeld, who was murdered in 2015 in a shooting near Shvut Rachel; Rabbi Michael (Miki) Mark, shot dead in a drive-by shooting on Route 60 in the Mount Hebron area; IDF Sgt. Yosef Cohen and Staff Sgt. Yuval  Mor Yosef, murdered in 2018 in a shooting at the Givat Asaf junction near Ofra; and Amiad Israel Ish Ran, who died a few days after being delivered in an emergency caesarean section after his mother was seriously wounded in a shooting on Route 60 in the 30th week of her pregnancy.

Mizrahi's widow, Hadas, says she had been opposed to the Schalit deal. Her husband was killed by Ziyad Awad, who was released in the deal. He had originally been jailed for the murder of four Palestinian collaborators.

"If my son had been kidnapped as a soldier, there would have been ways to release him. Israel is strong enough. It has a strong government and the IDF and Israeli intelligence are among the best in the world. We saw the results of the Jibril deal [a 1985 prisoner exchange in which Israel released 1,150 prisoners for three Israeli soldiers captured during the First Lebanon War] and other prisoner swaps where those released returned to terrorism.

"Awad's father was among those released in the Jibril deal, and he himself was released in the Schalit deal. His 18-year-old son was involved in the attack and his wife hid the weapon. The whole family was involved. The terrorist Awad said at his trial, 'Never mind; I'll be released shortly.' He served 10 years in prison and I until my dying day will bear the pain of loss and the pain of my injuries from the attack. They destroyed our family."

Q: Are you afraid that another exchange deal will be made?

"Of course, but I won't let that happen. I will fight till the end. Not a single terrorist can be freed. Because a freed terrorist is a potential terrorist attack. I will fight with my children, with my friends, with the entire People of Israel. We will stop trucks headed to Gaza. If the State of Israel, thinks even for a second about freeing terrorists we will block Gaza. I support the death penalty. If the state had dealt with terrorists the way it should, my husband would not have been murdered.

"Haven't we learned from previous prisoner swaps? Haven't we seen the results? There are so many lessons to be learned, how can we even talk about the possibility of future prisoner deals? We have to prevent the next terrorist attack," she says.

The Schalit deal caused a public furor when it was in the works. All the more so when it transpired that among the prisoners being released were 280 who had been sentenced to life in prison, including Nasser Yatima, who was given 29 life sentences for his part in the 2002 Park Hotel bombing in Netanya, which killed 30 people. Another of those released was Majdi Muhammad Ahmed Amr, who was sentenced to 19 life sentences for his part in planning the suicide bombing on the No. 37 bus in Haifa, also in 2002, in which 17 people were murdered.

After Schalit was kidnapped, the government formed the Shamgar Commission, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Meir Shamgar, to set guidelines for negotiations for the release of Israeli prisoners and MIAs. Members of the commission included Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yaron and Professor Asa Kasher, a specialist in military ethics.

The commission was appointed in the wake of public criticism following previous swaps. In 2004, the bodies of IDF soldiers Adi Avitan, Omar Sawaid and Benyamin Avraham, who were killed and abducted in a Hezbollah attack on Mount Dov, were returned to Israel along with Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli civilian held by Hezbollah, in exchange for 400 terrorists and another 35 additional prisoners, among them Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, who had at one point held missing IAF navigator Ron Arad.

Four years later, Israel received the bodies of fallen soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser in exchange for the murderer Samir Kuntar, who in 1979 took part in an attack in Nahariya in which three members of the Haran family and a policeman, Eliyahu Shachar, were murdered. Together with Kuntar, Israel also released four other prisoners and the bodies of 199 enemy fighters.

"I was opposed to the Kuntar deal," says then-Justice Minister, Prof. Daniel Friedmann. "The enemy didn't even want to reveal to us whether the soldiers were dead or alive. They said to us 'you will have to release prisoners just for us to tell you what this is about.' Still, the Kuntar deal was far more reasonable than the Schalit deal. We have reached a situation where we are paying for things that we should get under international law."

"In order to save the life of a soldier, do you sacrifice many lives and remove the element of deterrence?" he asks rhetorically before shooting back quickly.

"Now the terrorist organizations say to their people, 'What are you worried about? You got a life sentence? We'll kidnap someone.' Israeli deterrence has collapsed. I don't know of another country where hundreds of prisoners who participated in awful crimes are released wholesale. A life sentence is a worthy punishment, but it must be fulfilled. To mete out punishment and then not to fulfill it is a display of weakness. If someone knows that for one Israeli captive they can release a thousand terrorists, their appetite will only grow."

When the commission was appointed it was instructed to present its findings only after Schalit was released. They were submitted in 2012 and classified. The conclusions were around 100 pages long and remain classified, inter alia because of a Shin Bet security agency document that predicts how many of the prisoners released were likely to return to terrorism, and because of the formula it determined regarding how many terrorists would be released for a soldier, civilian or a body.

One of the findings that was released in the media was that "there should be a complete disconnect between the families of the prisoners and decision makers so as to prevent undue pressure."

A person in the know of the details claims that the secrecy of the findings has been maintained for several reasons. "First of all, it's preferable that Hamas not know what our red lines are, that will certainly help in negotiations," he explains. "Then there is another opinion that claims that politicians don't like when you give them red lines. They don't want to be restricted."

To this day, a decade after the release of Schalit, the commission's members have yet to be invited to present their findings to the government. And in any event, none of the conclusions have been adopted.

"They wrote down a price list for prisoner swaps," says Yoni Ben-Menachem, former director-general of the Israel Broadcasting Authority and today a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. An expert in Arab affairs and a strategic adviser on the Middle East, he says that "no one has adopted the commission's findings and it isn't at all clear why. It doesn't matter who the prime minister is; that's not how to handle things."

"I'm familiar with those who say let's set a price list," says former Mossad official David Meidan, who served as Benjamin Netanyahu's coordinator for POW and MIA affairs and was in charge of negotiations with Hamas. "Life is a lot more powerful than any price list. In the end when you negotiate you understand that determining in advance a price tag of a prisoner for a hostage may sound nice, but  it's not practical.

"I appeared twice before the Shamgar Commission. I don't have a bad word to say about its members,  they are all very respectable and serious people.  But there is a reason that no government has adopted its recommendations. The reason is simple – when you're in government you have to make practical  decisions. As someone who has been a commander, I know that the last thing you suggest to a commander is to give orders that he knows his soldiers won't be able to follow, because then he will have no authority."

Meidan, who was the first Israeli to meet Schalit at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, says: "I would do it all over again. When people talk about cost versus benefit, they need to understand that if we hadn't freed Schalit, then without declaring it we would have been saying that we would let a soldier die in captivity – with all the implications that brings. We had no other alternative.

"Schalit spent five years and four months on the other side of the border. No other Israeli spent so much time in captivity and returned alive. Throughout that period we had no intelligence indicating what his situation was. The only thing we had was a video released in 2009 in which he appears skinny and emaciated, but alive.

"The question that was in the balance was, in the absence of intelligence and without a military operation on the horizon do you abandon him, or do you negotiate and pay the least worst price to get him back. Negotiations aren't a pleasure. Signing off on the release of prisoners serving life sentences isn't something that gives you satisfaction. You do things because you have to, and in retrospect I would say that the decision was the correct one. The number of prisoners who returned to terrorism can be counted on one hand."

Q: Nevertheless, you still let killers back out on the streets.

"During the final rounds of negotiation I was joined by Yoram Cohen, who at the time was head of the Shin Bet. At the end of the day it is the Shin Bet that has to take responsibility. It has to decide whether to release Ahmed or Mohammed. It takes the gamble, and it deals with it very well. If you look at the things without applying demagoguery, you will see that there were a lot of terrorist incidents over the past decade – attacks on the Temple Mount, at Sarona Market, on Dizengoff Street  -- and 98-99% of them had nothing to do with the Schalit deal.

"One of the things we have learned is that when released prisoners return to terrorisim, it has nothing to do with personality or how many people they killed before. It's more about the climate within their organizations. If the organization is headed for an intifada, they will be part of it, and if the organization is moving to peace and reconciliation, they will be part of that. I don't want to play it down; some very serious terrorists were released, but most of them didn't return to action. It was a low level operative, one who nobody talked about, that killed Baruch Mizrahi on Passover eve. That just goes to show that the rank released doesn't matter."

Prisoners released in the Schalit deal can be found in the most influential positions, such in the Hamas leadership.: Ruhi Mushtaha, one of the founders of the military wing of Hamas and was involved in the kidnapping of Nachson Wachsman; Taufik Abu Naim, the head of the Hamas security apparatus in the Gaza Strip; and of course Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza and one of the founders of its military wing. In 1989 Sinwar was sentenced to five life sentences for murdering collaborators. Immediately upon his release, Sinwar promised that he would not rest until all the organization's prisoners in Israeli jails were released.

"Sinwar was perhaps the first prisoner whose release was agreed," says Meidan. "One of the things you learn in cases like this is that there are many shades, even in black. I don't want to play down any murder, Sinwar murdered five collaborators and that's awful, but when you look at the black, you say to yourself 'it isn't the Park Hotel massacre and it isn't the Dolphinarium massacre, and it isn't the murder of Minister [Rehavam] Ze'evi.

"There were a few symbolic figures that we refused to release at any cost, including Marwan Barghouti, who planned bus bombings. My last argument was with regard to Barghouti and in the end we kept him.

"The initial agreement was for 450 prisoners. When I started negotiating the figure was a done deal and the argument was about which prisoners would be included in that number?"

Q: How did we end up releasing 1,027 prisoners?

"At one stage in the negotiations (in 2009, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister) then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said that the deal was bad for them because it strengthened Hamas. Olmert decided to compensate them. He said 'let's give the PA more prisoners than Hamas is getting.' If they [Hamas] are getting 450, then the PA will get 550, but we will choose them. In other words, low-level prisoners. Around 300 of those released in 2011 were due to be released within the year, and 27 of them were women.

"It wasn't an easy deal, but it was also one of Israeli society's finest hours. We showed solidarity. A whole country stood behind a soldier who was captured in battle, not kidnapped while sitting in a bar on Dizengoff. Schalit was in a tank on the border. His comrades were killed and he was captured. So with all the pain and the heavy cost, the decision was the right one."

In early October 2011, shortly before Schalit was released on the 11th of the month and immediately after the lists of prisoners slated for release were submitted, a round table was held at the office of the director-general of the justice minister, Dr. Guy Rotkoff. Shin Bet, Israel Prison Service, and justice ministry representatives attended the meeting.

An in-depth discussion was held regarding each security prisoner who appeared on Hamas' list: what has he been convicted of, how he had behaved in prison, and how much blood he had on his hands. There were frequent arguments between the various participants regarding some of the names submitted – these arguments would go as far as Cabinet meetings with the prime minister.

"Over time, the Jibril prisoner swap, which had originally set the upper level [for prisoner releases] became the lower threshold," says Rotkoff. "It was the first time we agreed to pay those kinds of prices, and after that the sky was the limit. In the Schalit deal, the other side gave us a list of names that were their condition, and if we wanted to change anything it was at the fringes. We could only remove a few names.

"It was really difficult for me, but as a director-general you carry out government policy up to the point you define as your red line. From my perspective it didn't pass that point."

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One person who felt that his work was abrogated by the Schalit deal was Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, who served in the Judea and Samaria military prosecution, and in 2013 was appointed Chief Military Prosecutor for the territory.

"The release of terrorists was a very difficult event; there were prosecutors who went through many sleepless nights to get them into jail, and in one fell swoop all those prisoners were released," says Hirsch. "Over the years, in the framework of my various positions, I also served as a member of the justice ministry committee that would review who was eligible for release, so of course we take into account that some of them may return to terrorist activities. But we try to minimize damages, certainly when it comes to murderers and others serving life sentences.

"In this particular instance, part of the solution proposed was to deport a large number of the terrorists outside of Judea and Samaria. This created a situation whereby the backbone of Hamas sat in Gaza and directed operations from there, including in Judea and Samaria. Other operatives went to Turkey, and then there is the monster Ahlam Tamimi, who to this day sits in Jordan – she drove the terrorist who carried out the Sbarro restaurant bombing in 2001 in which 15 people were killed, and she smiled when she found out that eight children were among the dead."

In March, Interpol dropped Tamimi from its most-wanted list, but she is still wanted by the FBI because two of the victims of the Sbarro attack, Malki Roth and Judith Greenbaum, were American citizens. The US Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest or conviction and she is defined as "armed and dangerous."

But the Americans, despite their declarations, are not investing every possible effort into finding Tamimi, who since her release has not even tried to hide. If the US authorities wanted to find her they could ask Arnold Roth, the father of Malki Roth, who was just 15 when she was murdered. For years he has been trying to point them to Jordan.

"Tamimi is the most wanted woman in the world, and everyone knows where she lives," says Roth, whose family receives support from the One Family NGO, which helps terror victims and their families.

"Ten years ago. I was in Washington and I met with the Feds and the American justice ministry, and since then they have repeated the same absurd mantra – 'she is top of our agenda' – but they don't do anything.

"I know everything about Tamimi. She has a weekly web column, she appears every week on Jordanian televisions, usually about affairs she writes about - the Palestinians, prisoners, human rights. Since October of last year she has been living separately from her husband, who was deported by the Jordanians to Qatar [Jordan refused to extend his residency visa.] She stated in the media several times that she has no intention of joining him, and that her life would be in danger if she leaves Jordan."

Q: What do you think of the fact that Interpol has dropped Ahlam Tamimi from its most wanted list?

"In the Arab world, people claimed that Jordan had managed to persuade Interpol that the Zionists were lying and that the case against her was closed. But that's fabricated. Interpol dropped her from its list because Tamimi won't budge from Jordan, and Interpol has no authority there. The Jordanian police arrested Tamimi in 2016, but the magistrate's court released her the next day. I don't put any importance on Interpol. As long as she is in Jordan, it's a political affair, not a legal one. We want justice and we will continue to strive for it, because no one else but us will do so."

In the summer of 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee debated proposed legislation on the release of prisoners due to political or security considerations. Among those present was the then director-general of the justice ministry Emi Palmor, who updated the committee on the release procedure in the Schalit deal.

"In the case of the Schalit deal an unprecedented   was prepared," Palmor told the FADC at the time. "There were endless conditions, the violation of each of which would allow for the re-arrest of a prisoner, including on the same morning they were released. There was a clause there that enabled us to re-arrest them while they were still on the bus."

"We insisted that the releases would be conditional, among other things because we knew that things were very fragile and could change at any moment. In other words, even when the prisoners were already on the bus, the President still had a way to rescind and return them to jail.  After that we introduced far-reaching terms that were unprecedented when it comes to pardons – even the most minor violation, with sentencing of three months and above, could send someone to resume their life sentence, 20 life sentences and so on."

On the issue of deterrence, Palmor requested to note that "within the framework of the Schalit deal, 10 of those released but not allowed to return to their homes were given the option to return after a year, subject to approval from the Shin Bet. Not one of them chose to return, among other things because they understood the significance of these conditional mechanisms. They stayed overseas or in Gaza."

Hirsch remembers the period before Operation Protective Edge when the judicial system was finding it hard to deal with the number of prisoners released in the Schalit deal who had been re-arrested.

"The first tranche of the Schalit deal took place on October 18 and included the release of 477 terrorists," says Hirsch. "From that group, the terrorists went all over the place, some of them to Gaza, including Judea and Samaria residents who were sent there as part of the conditions for their release. About 120 of them were released to Judea and Samaria and to Arab communities in Israel. The release was conditional on them not committing any further offences.

"From October 2011 to July 2014 only a few of them were arrested for activities that constituted a violation. In July 2014, the three teenage boys were kidnapped in Gush Etzion, leading to the arrest of many terrorists, only one of whom had been released in the Schalit deal.

"After that we said to ourselves let's check who among those released has violated the terms, and within three days we had arrested 60 out of 120 people we had access to for conducting various terrorist activities. An incredible figure."

Q: Did you think the numbers would be any different?

"Not at all, I thought the prisoner release was a bad idea from the start. It was obvious that a lot of them would return to terrorism, because we didn't act to create deterrence. If the state had acted immediately with the first violation of conditions, things could have been much better. How did we reach a situation where in 2014 there were 60 people who violated their terms? 50 of those arrested were sent to appear before a judicial committee affiliated with the military courts, and the remainder were brought before the Israel Prison Service parole board to discuss whether they have violated the terms of their release. It was proven with regard to all of them that they had, and they were re-imprisoned to serve the remainder of their sentences."

One of the prisoners to be re-imprisoned was Samer Issawi, a resident of Issawiyeh in east Jerusalem, who was originally detained in 2002 for membership in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In June 2012, less than a year after his release, he was arrested on charges of violating the terms of his release by leaving Jerusalem, and the Shin Bet said that it had intelligence proving that he planned to return to terrorist activities.

In August 2012, launched a prolonged hunger strike that lasted on and off for more than 200 days until he reached a deal with the IPS, authorized by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that he would be released under restricted conditions. Shortly before the deal was made, a security prisoner had died leading to riots at Megiddo Prison, and the IPS was concerned that if anything happened to Issawi, further disturbances could erupt.

"Samer Issawi forced our hand and we had to release him again in exchange for him calling off his hunger strike," says Hirsch. "Unfortunately I had to present this shameful position to the courts. We stated that we were willing to release him as part of an agreement for him to call off his hunger strike."

Issawi wasn't the only one to use a hunger strike. Ayman al-Sharawana, a Hamas operative from the Hebron area who was sentenced to 38 years in jail for a series of terrorist offences, including placing an explosive device in Beersheba that injured 19 people, was released as part of the Schalit deal, but was jailed again for returning to terrorist activities. After a 53-day hunger strike, during which there were demonstrations in Judea and Samaria calling for his release, he was exiled to Gaza.

But even in Gaza he didn't halt his terrorist activities. In May 2013 Al-Sharawana gave an interview to a Lebanese TV channel, Al-Mayadeen, in which he said that he had returned to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The correspondent described how Al-Sharawana would put on a uniform and go out on operations in the evenings.

Some of those released in the Schalit deal had been militant while in prison and continued to be so after their release. Mazzen Faqha, a senior Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades member from Tubas in northern Samaria, was sentenced in 2003 to nine life sentences and an additional 50 years for his part in a suicide bombing on the 361 bus at Meron Junction in which nine people were murdered.

Following his release he was deported to Gaza, from where he continued to plan terrorist attacks in Samaria. One of his most loyal operatives was Ahmed Zahran, the head of a terror cell eliminated in an IDF raid near Jenin in late September. In March 2017, Faqha was shot in the head in the southern Gaza Strip. At first it appeared Israel's long arm had reached him, but it transpired that he had been shot by a fellow Hamas operative seeking revenge for his dismissal from the organization. The killer was later executed by Hamas.

The IDF did get its hands on Muhammad Fakia, who was jailed as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative but crossed the lines to Hamas while behind bars. Fakia was released in the Schalit deal and returned to the village of Dura near Hebron, where he had grown up. It was from there that in July 2016 that he conducted the fatal terrorist attack on route 60 that claimed the life of Rabbi Mark.

Less than a year later he was killed in an exchange of fire with IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police counter-terror forces, who fired an anti-tank missile at his hideout after he opened fire on them. Fakia became a martyr and local hero after his death. On the day he was killed a large march was held in his memory, with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh eulogizing him via phone.

While some of the prisoners released were directly involved in terrorist attacks, many others were involved behind the scenes in organizing attacks. Hussam Qawasmeh who mastermind the kidnapping and murder of the three Israel teens in 2014 told the Shin Bet during his interrogation that it was his brother Mahmoud, who had been released in the Schalit deal and deported to Gaza, who had transferred 220,000 shekels to him to carry out the operation.

Salim Juaba, who was sentenced to four years for helping smuggle mobile phones to prisoners at the Eshel Prison, is suspected of having been operated by Bassim Kurad, who was deported to Gaza in the Schalit deal. Kurad sent Juaba to a money changer who on four separate occasions handed over to him a total of 340,000 shekels ($105,000) that he used to purchase the mobile phones.

On the other hand, Media claims that most of the prisoners aren't interested in resuming terrorist activities. "Do you remember Mona Awana?" he asks. "The Christian Arab who in January 2001 tempted a teenager, Ofir Rahum, from Ashkelon and drove him to the suburbs of Ramallah, where he was shot dead?

"Awana was sentenced to life in prison and was released in the Schalit deal. Today she lives in Turkey and has nothing to do with terrorism, she's in a completely different place. She is horrible, awful and from a moral point of view would never have been released, but she is a horrible person who has left the way of terror and is today taking care of herself. Most of them are like that.

"In the discourse of demagoguery that has emerged, when people say that someone who was released spoke on the phone about transferring funds for an attack, they don't mention that prisoners speak from jail about funding attacks. It doesn't matter whether that operative is in Bethlehem, Hebron or Hadarim Prison.

"When it comes to the test of reality, 10 years have gone by and most of the prisoners have not returned to terrorism, and all the forecasts that rivers of blood will flow and there will be a third intifada have not materialized."

One person who has spent a lot of time interviewing security prisoners while they were in jail is Yoram Schweitzer, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. Schweitzer specialized in researching suicide attacks, and spent two-and-half years meeting and talking with dangerous security prisoners.

"I sat down with a lot of them in long, intimate conversations," says Schweitzer. There are those who during their time in jail became less militant. Others such as Ahlam Tamimi, for example, showed no change. Like Samir Kuntar, she continued to spout abuse even in background conversations and not just formal interviews. But you have to know that only a few returned to terrorism, and if you look at it in a rational and calculated manner, then most likely if they hadn't done it others would have been sent on the mission.

"The question wasn't whether they would return to terrorist activity. Prisoner swaps are part of the risk society takes upon itself in order to uphold the values that enable mothers to send their children to battle, knowing that if something goes wrong everything possible will be done to bring the boys back home."

Q: So prisoner swaps are acceptable from your point of view?

"One has to take into account that Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the south, and Hezbollah in the north, have become terrorist armies. If there is a war and prisoners are taken, then despite the stench we will have to make deals with these armies and with people that murdered Israelis in terrorist operations. We will face a different challenge, because when you negotiate with an army it is on the face of it legitimate. We will face a heart-wrenching, but practical dilemma.  We can call them terrorist organizations all we want, but we will have to negotiate with them.

"What do you think would have happened if in November 2018 the special forces unit that got into a firefight in Gaza would have remained there? [the failed IDF operation near Khan Younis in which Lt.-Col. M. was killed. E.L.] I would like to see what all the heroes would say then."

Both former justice minister Friedman and Hirsch believe that the time has come that Israel, in such cases, employ the Detention of Unlawful Combatants Law passed in 2002 after the High Court of Justice ruled that the defense minister has no authority to hold Lebanese citizens in administrative detention as bargaining cards.

According to the law, an unlawful combatant is "a person who took part in hostilities against the State of Israel, whether directly or indirectly, or who is a member of a force carrying out hostilities against the State of Israel, who does not satisfy the conditions granting a prisoner of war status under international humanitarian law, as set out in article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War;…"

"Let's assume that Hamas terrorists were sentenced to a specific term and had completed that sentence. The question is whether they should be released and then will be able to return to all activities," explains Friedman. "The law allows them to continue to be held without trial under a detention order that undergoes judicial review, in cases where there is danger, but it is not used. There is a reluctance to use means that we are allowed and need to use, measures that I believe meet international standards."

Hirsch also supports the use of the law: "The more you hold people from the command level, the more you succeed in preventing them from dragging us into debates about freeing murderers. Regretfully, the judicial system is conceptually ossified and has not found a way to continue to hold these people in prison even after completion of their sentence. I my opinion in order to receive the bodies of our soldiers the state should not release terrorists to Gaza, but should simply hold them as unlawful combatants, and peace be upon Israel

Q: Should the state hold prisoners for an indefinite period of time?

"In principle we are talking about a situation that is similar to the status of a prisoner of war, because after all we are talking about unlawful combatants. They should be held until the conclusion of hostilities and until there is no further danger from their organization. That is definitely something that could be done

The Schalit deal most likely won't be the last. At present, the bodies of Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in action in Operation Protective Edge, are being held in Gaza, along with three captive civilians, Avera Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed, and Juma Abu Anima. Negotiations over their release are constantly in the air.

"It is a battle between two values that are both right," says Schweitzer. "Those that say you must not give in, and you must not pay such inflated prices, are right, and on the other hand so are those that support the value of bringing prisoners back home, and even risking soldiers' lives to do so, if there is an option.

"The Americans are always given as an example of a country that doesn't give in to terrorism, but they did a deal to release a deserter, Bowe Bergdhal, who was taken captive by the Taliban. The Americans released five Al-Qaida and Taliban to get him back."

When I was involved in negotiations, I wasn't sufficiently aware of the impact on the public," adds Meidan. "I was focused on how to find a crack to squeeze through and get the affair over with. There was a broad consensus among the public – I believe that more than 80% supported the deal – that releasing the prisoners was not something good and it was something done due to constraints and not something to be happy about."

Q: Will the other side raise the price in future deals?

"That is the theory. The thing that is on the table right now is two bodies and three civilians. That is in the category of humanitarian negotiations. It is not a soldier captured in battle and still alive. So in my opinion the negotiations should take place in a humanitarian framework, and here I am willing to be generous and even to come out a sucker. I'm willing to give a lot, because I gain twice – I gain what I want, and I am happy to help the other side out from a humanitarian perspective.

"I am sure that if you dig deep you will find among the thousands of security prisoners dozens who have cancer, are receiving dialysis, and perhaps those are mentally ill. I would put a package like that together and publish it, because how you present things is important. Add to that package the construction of a hospital or a large clinic, of course on condition that the Egyptians lead the deal, because only they know how to talk to Hamas. Of course that doesn't mean it's easy, but there are no easy deals.

The post A question of cost appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Russia ordered its top army command Thursday to begin returning troops to their permanent bases inside the country after a "successful snap inspection" of forces in its south and west, near the border with Ukraine, the RIA Russian news agency reported.

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"I believe the objectives of the snap inspection have been fully achieved. The troops have demonstrated their ability to provide a credible defense for the country," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying. "In this regard, I have decided to complete the inspections in the southern and western military districts."

He said the forces would return to their bases by May 1.

It was unclear if the rebasing order covered all of the forces involved in that buildup. A top European Union diplomat said on Monday that Russia has massed some 100,000 troops near the border.

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Israel's coronavirus contagion rate rose for the third consecutive day on Wednesday, standing at 0.9, meaning each confirmed carrier infects 0.9 other people, a report by Military Intelligence issued Wednesday revealed. However, the number of COVID patients in serious condition continued to drop and as of Wednesday afternoon was 795.

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COVID tests conducted in the past 24-hour period identified 4,395 new cases, a positive rate of 6.1%.

On Tuesday, 17 more patients succumbed to COVID-19, pushing the country's total death toll since the pandemic hit Israel to 5,619.

According to the report, there is a "clear decline" in the numbers of new confirmed cases and serious cases among adults age 60 and over, thanks to the vaccination campaign. However, there is a clear rise in the number of patients in serious condition in younger age groups, who have recently comprised about half of all serious cases," the report noted.

The report stated that the vast majority – 80% − of new confirmed cases were in people under age 40, and some 17% were people ages 50-59.

Also on Wednesday, the Health Ministry launched a new campaign urging the public to get vaccinated against COVID, featuring the heads of the COVID units at the Hadassah and Soroka Medical Centers in Jerusalem and Beersheba, respectively.

"The people who arrive here are people who weren't vaccinated," one of the doctors says.

Serious cases among IDF soldiers are on the rise, according to a letter authored by IDF Chief Medical Officer Brig. Gen. Alon Glazberg obtained by Israel Hayom.

The document, sent out on Feb. 17, provides example of soldiers in serious condition and underscores the importance of vaccinating IDF personnel.

"Most of the people serving in the IDF are young and healthy, and fortunately, in the previous waves [of COVID] only a few developed serious illness," Glazberg and two other medical officers who signed the letter wrote.

"However, we must inform you that we are seeing a change in this trend. In recent weeks we have been dealing with a number of COVID patients in the IDF who require respiratory support and have even been hospitalized on ICUs," the letter states.

As of Wednesday, there were 827 confirmed COVID cases among IDF soldiers, and 4,295 were in quarantine. This still comprises a significant decrease from Feb. 7, when the number of confirmed cases among soldiers stood at 3,270. As of Tuesday morning, two-thirds (67%) of soldiers had been fully vaccinated against COVID, as defined by a week or more having gone by since their second vaccine dose. By the end of this week, 84% of IDF personnel are projected to have received both doses of the vaccine.

As of Wednesday, there were 41,924 active or symptomatic COVID cases nationwide, and 4.53 million citizens had received the first dose of the vaccine. Among Israelis age 60 and over, 90% have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.

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Meanwhile, the number of new cases in the Arab Israeli sector continues to rise, worrying leaders and healthcare officials alike.

There are a few reasons for the unprecedented outbreak, the first being the low vaccination rate in this sector.

The "wedding season," set to begin in a few weeks, is also cause for worry, especially in light of the numerous variants of the virus identified in Israel, some of which are more contagious and cause more serious illness than the original COVID virus.

In recent interviews, director of the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya Professor Masad Barhoum has not tried to hide his concern at the growing wave of new cases among Arab Israelis.

"We all remember what happened last time the sector held weddings," Barhoum said.

"This time, the British variant and other mutations are part of the equation, and if the public as a whole, Jews and Arabs, is not careful, we will once again be seeing hospitals completely full with no room for patients," Barhoum warned.

East Jerusalem, where the rate of vaccination is also low, is also seeing more and more COVID cases in recent days, with 294 more confirmed cases since the start of this week, compared to 77 last week.

Data indicates that most of the new cases in east Jerusalem are among residents age 40 or under. The neighborhoods with the highest numbers of new cases are A-Tur, Beit Hanina, Shuefat, Issawiya, and Beit Zafafa.

As far as vaccination, only 25.2% of east Jerusalem residents have been vaccinated against COVID, even in comparison to Arab Israeli communities.

A Health Ministry official in east Jerusalem told Israel Hayom that he believed that the recent rise in cases there was attributable to Friday prayers on the Temple Mount.

"Every time, there are thousands of people there. When there was a lockdown, there were no weddings or holiday celebrations, and people weren't traveling abroad. There's no reason other than the Temple Mount prayers, with the tens of thousands who have been there in the past few weeks, the official said."

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"I commit myself to continue the work to bring back our MIAs and our prisoners of war, just as we did with Zachary Baumel," the prime minister declared, addressing an audience of high-level officials and bereaved relatives ahead of the start of Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism.

Baumel's body was returned to Israel last month in a Russian-assisted operation nearly four decades after he was declared missing during the First Lebanon War in 1982.

"In this way, the State of Israel kept its promise to every mother and father in Israel, the obligation to bring home the men and women who did not return from battle," Rivlin said, also pointing to the return of Baumel speaking at the official state ceremony, minutes after the moments silence for the fallen soldiers.

"This is a commitment that we continue to make to the families of every one of the missing soldiers of the IDF and those fallen soldiers whose place of burial is unknown," the president continued.

"We will not cease until they have all been brought back," he ended.

As the state ceremony was taking place, simultaneous candle-lighting ceremonies were held in schools and public institutions across Israel.

"Today we are bending our heads and paying respects to 23,741 fallen dead in the battles of Israel: Jews, Druze, Muslims, Christians, [and] Bedouin," Netanyahu continued.

"To them we add the thousands of victims of hostilities including four innocent civilians killed at the beginning of this week because of the rocket of the terrorists from Gaza," he said, referring to a recent spike in violence that saw over 650 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory over a period of two days.

"Their memory is etched in our soul, due to them our state can exist, without them where would we have been today."

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi praised the courage demonstrated by Israeli soldiers and said that the army was doing "everything" in its capability "to prevent future casualties."

"There is no consolation, but there is meaning," he said.

"Seventy-five years ago we were dust on the face of the earth, today we are rising global power and since the beginning of the revival in our own land every generation stands against our enemies," Netanyahu said, encouraging those who a grieving to find solace "in what we do have."

"We do not wish for war but the willingness to sacrifice is the guarantee to our fate," he ended.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS. Read more at https://www.i24news.tv/en.

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"He was an outstanding soldier, the only soldier I saw with a black kippah," says Shlomo Ardinest, the company commander who had served with Tubel.

"He was a haredi soldier who came to the IDF from yeshiva and that was special. In the months before the fighting broke out, he stood out as very strong physically, someone who would take on any challenge, pleasant, admired and disciplined. In the outposts, food was mostly combat rations and Tubel would bring different spices from home, add them and make the military rations into delicacies, and of course share with us all."

The prayer ended. Silence settled on the 450 soldiers who were manning the front line, with the aid of about 80 tanks.

"In those days, we would see the Egyptian forces practicing crossing the canal in front of us. It worried me," says Ardinest.

Ari Ginossar, who was also serving on the pier, adds, "At the time, they would send Nahal soldiers at the end of their service to Sharm e-Sheikh for two months and then for another two months on the canal outposts. That was how it was. End of the road, complacency. None of the guys had ever been in battle or under fire in his life. I was responsible for sending them home. In hindsight, it turns out that I was actually sealing people's fate, who stayed and who went. Our cook, for example, wanted to go home and I didn't let him. I said, 'The guys are fasting, who will let them eat well and kosher after the fast?' By doing so, without knowing it, I doomed him to be captured and imprisoned."

Despite the nonchalance, the soldiers were still under order to sleep with their boots on. At 1:50 p.m. on Yom Kippur, the alert turned into a war.

"We heard a siren and the radio notified us that it was not a drill," Ardinest recalls. "I went up top with a few spotters. At first, there was quiet and you didn't think anything would happen but then, all of a sudden, we were being bombarded by fighter jets and we were under heavy artillery fire."

Ginossar remembers: "The Egyptians fooled the IDF. A year earlier, they had carried out a huge drill of crossing the canal and the whole country was worried but later nothing happened, so they thought it was a trick this time, too. But unlike the previous time, the Egyptian soldiers who were part of the canal drill didn't go back to their bases in trucks – they hid on the other side. A very large contingent gathered there and no one on our side even noticed."

The heavy Egyptian assault lasted about 45 minutes, after which some 8,000 well-trained Egyptian commandos crossed the canal, armed with missiles, and dug in around the Israeli positions, setting down stocks of missiles to be used against the tanks that were en route to help.

"The moment the shooting stopped, all the soldiers in our outposts fanned out. But the southern end of the post was open. On the other sides, there were obstacles or canal water and it wasn't easy to attack. The southern end was vulnerable and Tubel was there, with commander David Turgeman, Ginossar and other soldiers. Hundreds of Egyptian commandos were shooting and firing missiles from every direction. The guys at the southern end were fighting like crazy. At the end of the war, there were over 150 bodies of Egyptian commandos counted there, as well as a lot of wounded. Senior commanders in the Egyptian army confirmed after the war that they didn't understand how we held on," Ardinest says.

Ginossar, who was fighting alongside Tubel, adds, "There was a siren, there was a bombardment and you didn't know if it was war or what would happen next. Then the Egyptian attacks started and Tubel and Turgeman were shooting like crazy. I ran with a machine gun to help push back the offensive. No one had prepared us for an eventuality like this, we didn't understand what was going on, we were all scared but we fought to the end. It's hard to explain now what we went through. We went from total complacency to a terrible war.

Moshe-Itzhak Tubel came to the Nahal company from Bnei Brak, where he was raised in a haredi Talmud Torah school. He then went on to a yeshiva in Haifa. In 1971, he enlisted in the army and served in what was the first iteration of today's haredi Nahal – a special track established in the 1960s by the Young Agudath Israel Movement. Tubel was a cantor and talented with the shofar but also enjoyed the Beatles and Arik Einstein.

Tubel's sister Tzipora gave an interview before she died in which she said, "He was the only paratrooper in our neighborhood. For us, it was a source of pride to see a soldier in Bnei Brak. I remember him coming home, putting me on his shoulders, walking around the house and singing. When I grew up, I wouldn't accept a shidduch with a boy who hadn't served in the army."

His brother, Moti, says that Tubel loved soccer. "He was an excellent player and also went to matches. He even dreamed of going to England and studying soccer professionally."

But all these dreams came to an end in one heroic moment on the pier.

"During the battle, I hear Tubel shouting, 'Grenade in the post!' An Egyptian soldier had thrown a grenade that landed among us and put everyone in danger. I saw Tubel trying to throw it back but realizing he didn't have time. Suddenly, he calmly took the grenade and laid down on top of it.

"We heard a huge explosion. I was thrown in the air and wounded by shrapnel. Tubel was critically wounded. It was clear to me at that moment that he'd given his life for us. He was still alive but we couldn't evacuate him because we were under massive fire. Only that even did we evacuate him to the medical bunker. I knew then it was too late. His body had taken most of the force of the grenade," Ginossar recalls.

Forty-six years later, Dr. Nahum Verbin – who battled to save Tubel's life and the life of another haredi soldier, Avichayil Peled, who was also seriously wounded but survived – says he is still too emotional to discuss the events and refers Israel Hayom to his blog, where he wrote this: "Tubel and Avichayail arrived wrecked. … Most of Tubel's blood had been spilled there before they brought him in. He was still conscious and said he couldn't feel his legs, with good reason – he didn't have any legs anymore, only torn pants and scraps of skin and shards of bone. … I put two tourniquets on him, set up a blood transfusion and then gave him a shot of antibiotics. I covered him with disinfectant and bandaged what had been his legs and called in an emergency evacuation."

According to Ginossar, "That night, the shooting stopped. The Egyptian commandos had been repelled and I could go down to the medical bunker. Dr. Verbin was doing wonders and miracles but when he saw me he took my face in his hands and said, 'Ari, Tubel died in my arms.' He was so pained he couldn't [save him]. The tank guys who had tried to rescue us were shattered, too. The IDF didn't know back then what Sager missiles were and the tanks that were headed for the outpost went straight into an ambush and took a serious hit. These missiles were new to them and they looked stunned."

Peled, who was serving with the IDF Rabbinate, found himself in the war almost by chance. He had arrived to organize Yom Kippur prayers.

"I was happy to find another haredi man who was handling everything necessary," he says of Tubel. "It was good I had someone to help. Then, suddenly, the Egyptians attacked and you find yourself grabbing a gun and fighting. In the middle of it, I heard Tubel jump on the grenade and be wounded but there was nothing to be done other than keep fighting," he remembers.

"The guys on the pier were fighting surrounded by dead and wounded and it was clear that there would be no rescue and they were surrounded. They demonstrated tremendous heroism," Ardinest says.

Eventually, despite their heroic stance, the IDF decided that the soldiers on the pier would surrender after two extraction attempts failed and their ammunition was running out.

"At first, we weren't willing to surrender. I wanted to fight until our last bullet. All of us, all the soldiers there, weren't willing to give up until we were beaten. Even those who had never been in battle," Ginossar said.

"It wasn't easy but in the end, we complied with the order to surrender. We left behind our dead comrades, one of whom was Tubel, in the bunker, covered up. We only took the wounded. … The Egyptians didn't return Tubel's body until 1979, after the peace treaty [between Israel and Egypt]. When I returned from Egyptian captivity 35 days later, they asked me to recommend candidates for citations. Without hesitating, I recommended Avichayail and Itzhak [Tubel], who gave his life to save his comrades, including me," he adds.

After the war, both Tubel and Peled were awarded medals by the chief of staff. Tubel's friends and family think that the fact that he knowingly gave his life to save his friends justifies the Medal of Distinguished Service.

"I was very supportive of Itzhak's sister, who worked to have him awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service. I understood that it was important to her and her children but I also told her there was no chance that anyone in the IDF would deal with the matter after so many years and it was a shame. It's important to remember a brave soldier like him, who came from the haredi sector, fought and saved us at the cost of his own life," Ginossar says.

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An IDF lone soldier is someone serving who has no immediate family in Israel.

Launched in cooperation with Yahad-United for Israel's Soldiers, an organization under the Defense Ministry's umbrella that funnels donations to Israeli soldiers and military units, the initiative is dedicated this year to the memory of the late Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and former president of the Fellowship.

The gift coupons, which are valid in the Shufersal supermarket chain, are aimed at giving the soldiers the opportunity to purchase food, clothing, footwear, sports apparel, electronics and other items. The 8,500 soldiers have received necessary referrals for eligibility from respective IDF units.

Among those receiving the gift coupon are 6,581 lone soldiers – 54% of whom are serving as combat soldiers or as soldiers providing combat support.

Some 55% of the lone soldiers who are entitled to a coupon come from 76 different countries between them all. Of the countries of origin with the largest number of lone soldiers, 882 are from the United States, 596 from the Ukraine and 479 from Russia.

"The IDF is the people's army, and as such it is not immune to dealing with the social challenges that characterize Israel," said Yael Eckstein, president of the Fellowship.

"Every year, thousands of soldiers from low-income families and thousands of lone soldiers who have come to Israel by themselves in order to enlist in the IDF, serve in the Israeli army," she continued.

"Together with the army and partners such as Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and Yahad-United for Israel's Soldiers, the Fellowship has developed a series of unique solutions through which soldiers receive assistance as part of an effort to enable them to serve in tranquility."

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N. is a 19-year-old pepper pot. She's opinionated and knows what she wants to achieve. She is an observant Muslim who prays five times a day and during the Ramadan fast mostly takes night shifts. She is a combat infantry soldier in the Lions of the Jordan Valley Battalion, which executes operations in Judea and Samaria and nearly every day clashes with the Palestinians in the area.

"I don't stop to think that these people are Arabs like me," she says in fluent Hebrew.

"I always tell myself that they brought this situation – in which they are facing Israeli soldiers – on themselves, and I perform my mission as I need to. It doesn't matter when I come from and who I pray to every day, or what I wear when I go home on leave. When I'm on a mission, I need to fulfill it in order to protect my friends, my country. That's why I enlisted," she says.

Before she heads out on leave to the hostile Muslim village in northern Israel she calls home, she takes off her uniform, puts on civilian clothes, and affixes her hijab – the traditional headscarf that covers her hair and neck. She cannot return home for the weekend in uniform or carrying her military-issue weapon.

"There are some people in the village who realized that I'm in the army and started to threaten my family with violence," N. says sadly.

"They tried to physically attack my family, and that's scary. Even though my parents support me, every time someone threatens them they take a step back. I was raised to love people, no matter what their religion or beliefs.

"In our home, they always said that Arabs and Jews here are living on the same land. But when there were terrorist attacks, and Jews were being killed, the neighbors said they deserved to die and I didn't understand how they could say such things. I saw how difficult the situation in the country was and I decided I wanted to change it," she says.

Not everyone is pleased at the idea of a devout Muslim woman serving in an infantry unit. She says that the debate about haredi conscription pales in comparison to what she has experienced.

N. has already served under one commander who accidentally separated her from her comrades during a training course because she was wearing her hijab. That same commander apologized after the incident, but N. says even the apology did not make up for the offense.

N. says she has also been threatened by male Arab soldiers, who said they would harm her if she didn't leave the army. They were removed from her unit. But she says she has also received much support from her unit comrades, as well as from battalion commander Capt. Roni Avital and from company commander Lt. Gal Yosef.

The infantry corporal has plenty to say about people who look at her askance.

"If I listened to everyone who wasn't supportive, I wouldn't have made it this far. I wouldn't be dreaming of a career in the military. I think that Arabs need to think not only about what the country can do for them, but also about what they can do for the country.

"We need to take a look at ourselves, because we live here, and if we want our rights, we need to do something, and one thing to do is go all the way and contribute to the army. If we don't fight together, Arabs and Jews, we won't have a country," she says.

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