‘We were the first brigade to enter Gaza’
“We received amazing support from our Australian community. We were touched by the amount of people who came forward to assist in our important causes.”
On October 7, a Duvdevan reservist* was celebrating his bachelor party in Sinai. After a flurry of messages, a decision was quickly made to return home so members of the party, most part of elite special units, could join their reserve units. The reservist shared his story exclusively with The AJN.
“I joined my reserve duty unit, and we headed south to join our active-duty members. It was a very surreal and intense experience to drive to villages next to the Gaza border. We’d never seen a scene like it. Seeing the number of casualties and destruction, we understood that this was not a typical attack. When we arrived at one of the kibbutzim, we were told that some houses still had civilian hostages. As we went house by house, we were ambushed a few times by Hamas terrorists, who threw grenades at us, shooting at us nonstop. It took us eight hours to clear the kibbutz and we unfortunately lost a few of our best soldiers.
“Once we gained control of the villages we began training for the offensive part of the war – invading Gaza and eliminating Hamas.
“In between everything, I got married to the love of my life, a war room officer, who was also called up for reserve duty.
“Multiple rockets were shot into central Israel on the day. We were worried about our guests, but our rabbi said that the chuppah would serve as the spiritual Iron Dome.
“This is literally what happened. Between the sirens and us both having an active role in the war, we managed to get married with our families and some friends [with] us.
“The following day, we drove to my base, did the Sheva Brachot, and then we said goodbye as my wife headed back to her base. It was a very emotional, transformative moment.
“After intensive training, we finally got the go-ahead to enter Gaza.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster while thinking about the 10 people I know who were murdered. I kept thinking about my best friend’s dad who is one of the hostages.
“We were the first brigade to enter Gaza. We felt the entire state behind us. The mateship within my team (we have trained and fought for more than 10 years together) also made us all feel that we could do everything asked of us, as long as we were together.
“We had multiple encounters with terrorists during the first few days and we managed to eliminate them, while being very careful not to harm innocent civilians.
“The team who fought beside us were hit by a grenade. We heard the entire incident on the radio. It was hard to hear without being able to assist. They are all BH getting better. We feel honoured to participate in this war, to protect the people of Israel and to BH bring the kidnapped back to safety. The IDF is strong and with your support, we will win this war.”
The reservist acknowledged the invaluable support from the Duvdevan Foundation. Explaining that volunteers collect urgent supplies and allocate them to the soldiers, he said his unit has received shoes, tactical bags and knee protectors as well as food and other items to increase moral.
“We launched an emergency campaign about a month ago,” said the Australian director of the Duvdevan Foundation, Yoav Yichie. “We received amazing support from our Australian community. We were touched by the amount of people who came forward to assist in our important causes.”
Yichie said it’s especially important to continue to support the soldiers, particularly mentally. “We must remember that these soldiers have witnessed some of the toughest scenes.”
*Name has been withheld for privacy and protection.