Sergeant Major Ben Kerido shares real time, first person updates from the front lines of Gaza during Operation Swords of Iron
The incoming and outgoing bombardment to and from Gaza continued for days. We held defensive positions and conducted patrols of our sector inside of Israel. In one instance, our officers informed us of a mission to scan our sector for a possible Hamas terrorist infiltration. But something was a little bit off. Essentially we were told that behind every bush and under every rock there could be a Palestinian Arab terrorist. That’s fine, but apparently that wasn’t an idiom. As we started the search, our officers were — quite literally — checking in the bushes for terrorists to the point of seeming absurdity. It was hard for me to them and the orders seriously.
The next day we were ordered to conduct a similar search mission. Now, instead of looking for the terrorists themselves, we were ostensibly looking for evidence that terrorists that had been in the area at some point. Here’s the thing. Like most militaries, the IDF will sometimes tell us a bogus story to avoid intel leaks, morale drops, or whatever. But the military isn’t always good at coming up with a good cover story. So in this case by now I knew that the army wasn’t telling us the whole truth, but I didn’t know what they didn’t want to tell us. Anyway, so we conducted another patrol of our sector, searching for terrorists or the evidence of their presence.
Moving along, I found a wooden plank with Arabic writing scribbled on it with a permanent marker. I called Archie over, who is fluent in Arabic, and asked him to read and translate it. He said that, effectively, the board said, “We will never forget Allah and his prophet, Mohammed.” Although we were ostensibly looking for terrorists or evidence of their activities, my officers didn’t seem to be all that interested in the radical Moslem messaging on the wooden plank. We continued to carefully peruse our sector. And then I had a sudden and sickening realization that hit me like a punch to the gut. While it was true that in general we were looking for terrorists and the evidence thereof, we were specifically looking for something else. The corpses of murdered Jews. Hundreds of victims — especially children— were unaccounted for. And apparently Hamas barbarians had often tossed their lifeless bodies into the thickets of thorn bushes and into pockets between boulders. Behind every bush and under every rock there might not be a terrorist… but there could be a dead Jew or other victim. What have these monsters done to my home?
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