Doing what is needed: 'Post' reporter on battling Hamas face-to-face in Gaza

The 'Post's' Michael Starr discusses the harrowing experiences and difficult decisions in Gaza combat during reserve duties.

By MICHAEL STARR DECEMBER 5, 2024 18:58

'We were ready to do what was needed.' The 'Post's' Mike Starr has served two rounds of duty in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attacks. (photo credit: Courtesy)

War is death and destruction. These horrors demand that if war must be fought, it must be fought until victory, lest these horrors be revisited. This was the thought that held in my mind as we crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, finishing our second tour of duty in the October 7 war.

We had arrived at night two months earlier. The bright moon illuminated the husks of buildings, casting pale shadows that danced along our armored truck as we navigated along the Netzarim Corridor. Each time we passed between the building shades, the moonlight glinted on a machine-gun barrel that slowly scanned our surroundings. The reconnaissance battalion soldier tightened his grip on the vehicle’s FN MAG emplacement, carefully watching the ruins through clouds of dust.

The brigade that we were replacing in positions along the vital security corridor had lost several soldiers to enemy attacks days before our arrival. We were alert to the dangers of ambushes, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and snipers, but were no strangers to such environments. The 8111 reservist battalion had been called up on October 7 when Hamas murdered, raped, and abducted its way through southern Israel. We had served in the ravaged Israeli towns for two months before finally entering the Gaza Strip for almost two more.

Helmeted heads rattled with each turn and bump in the road as we neared the buildings that would house the battalion.

There were fewer helmets than I had hoped. Not everyone returned home from the last tour, and not everyone returned for the second round in the war zone. The friction of life had peeled many away from the unit. They had civilian responsibilities as children were born, businesses faced crises, and families crumbled under the weight of the war. Others still nursed physical or psychological wounds from our previous deployment.

'The friction of life had peeled many away from the unit.' The 'Post's' Mike Starr has served two rounds of duty in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attacks. (credit: Courtesy)

For the rest of us, we largely had to settle our affairs ahead of our draft date. Surrendering one life to start the other was more difficult than crossing the border into Gaza, but once we had donned the olive green, we were ready to do what was needed.

The truck finally arrived at our new position. We unloaded our heavy bags and climbed the four stories into an apartment. We spent the night in complete darkness, peeking out at the unknown with night vision goggles and scopes through holes carved into the walls. The blankets and camouflage netting that covered the apartment’s windows, holes, and doorways stifled any light and airflow, turning the rooms into an oven.

After the first uncertain night, dawn revealed the landscape. We were positioned north of the security corridor, our salient jutting into the underbelly of Zeitoun, where a Hamas battalion of the same name still operated. To the south, lay a field of concrete rubble spanning the stretch of corridor – a graveyard of houses. The roofs of the buildings had often broken down the middle, with one slab of concrete jutting up like tombstones for the homes that had once stood there.

'A giant gun pointed at Israel'

This was the grim cost of Hamas having converted the territory into a giant gun pointed at Israel.

Roads were reduced to sandy strips by the treads of tanks. Garbage was strewn throughout the area, the food for packs of wild dogs that ruled Gaza in Hamas’s stead. Day and night the dogs would roam the streets and debris fields, snarling and barking at one another. Many of these wild animals learned to appreciate soldiers, who would give them food and water. Sometimes the dogs would join them on patrol or guard duty. We were particularly fond of the puppies, sweet-faced little things with black button eyes.

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FOR THE next month we brought more buildings down to the ground, removing those that were believed booby trapped, housed tunnel entrances, or created a more advantageous security position. Every few days we shifted to another site, often leaving our old base in rubble. The enemy managed to fire off the occasional mortar bomb in our general direction. Another company was almost hit by a dud RPG, embedding in a wall inches from their faces. One Hamas operative trying to escape into a tunnel had a building brought down on him by a UAV when he was spotted by a neighboring company, and another was captured when he tried to place an IED in a bag on a road.

Besides these incidents, the area was far quieter than our previous deployment. As news broke that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had been killed, there was a pervading sense that the enemy was collapsing under IDF assaults. As noted by our commanders in briefings, the immediate enemy could not muster strategic operations, grasping at tactical attacks and battlefield propaganda stunts. In the previous deployment, enemy tunnels were everywhere, but as their underground infrastructure collapsed, Hamas could not keep up its once steady pace of hit-and-run RPG attacks. Its fighters usually dared not venture out into the day, and were blind at night. They seemed to desperately cling to the dimmest light of dusk and dawn, when visibility was low.

The IDF did not wait for the Hamas units in the north to conduct these attacks. The mission of 8111 Battalion was not just to defend the Netzarim Corridor and expand control of surrounding territory. We were one of the many units to serve as an anvil, as the hammer of an IDF division fell on the Jabalya area.

Prior to the attack, evacuation notices given to the residents of the area called for them to move south along a coastal road or down the Salah a-Din Road. Only a trickle of dozens made their way down the central artery by the anniversary of October 7.

On one of our last weeks of the tour, movement was spotted in front of one of our old sites, a complex of three buildings. The complex had been largely left intact. We would regularly clear the buildings to use for stakeouts and reconnaissance, due to their immediate proximity to what we declared a redline boundary. Beyond this boundary, Hamas and other terrorist groups still held some sway and control. The old complex stood between the boundary and our new position, and was only 250 meters from our new site, well within rifle range. Our sergeant and light machine gunner saw two men with bags scaling the rubble. They had ventured from beyond the redline, through the complex, and out to the other side, facing us – on the path we routinely navigated each time we visited the old site.

We sent out a drone to investigate. The little quadcopter zoomed across the gap between the sites. The two men heard the drone coming – one of them dropped a bag – and shot back into the building. Our drone specialist guided his avatar over the complex and peered below. On the other side of the building the two intruders joined two others who had been waiting. Together they fled from the drone, crossing the sandy depression between the complex and the boundary. At the mouth of a main road, four more men were waiting. They ran down the road, joining others still, until they disappeared into the Zeitoun neighborhood.

Our platoon and company officers were disturbed. People had come so close to our position without being seen, with bags that could contain IEDs.

THAT NIGHT, the order came down – the old complex had to be removed immediately. The intelligence assessment indicated that Hamas was sending to the blind spot spies and operatives to lay IEDs. Our platoon officer detailed the operation in the predawn morning. We would circle around to a building on the same row as the old complex. Once there, we would clear the building floor by floor, then set up a sniper stakeout. Once the snipers were there to cover us, we would be joined by three tanks and two D9s, which would help us advance to the three buildings so we could secure them for combat engineers to rig for demolition.

Fears of Hamas IEDs in the area

Many of the soldiers in my platoon were tense about the likelihood that Hamas had laid IEDs around the area. We had lost friends in an IED ambush last tour. They argued that canine handlers or combat engineers should lead the way because of their specialization in spotting and recognizing explosives.

“I’m not confident I can identify every IED,” said our light machine gunner, who would be taking point with me.

“Don’t worry, I know how to identify IEDs – but I can only do it when they’re exploding,” I joked. “If I say ‘aaah!’ – that‘s my signal that I’ve found one.”

A few laughs go a long way to calm nerves.

The platoon, company command squad, and a sniper team gathered in formation outside our site under a gray dawn. Our platoon officer drew back his rifle’s charging hand, loading a bullet into the chamber. The rest followed, cocking their weapons in a clatter.

We led the formation with a steady pace through the alleys of the dilapidated neighborhood until outside our first destination, the sniper nest building. At our officer’s command, one of our drone specialists rushed forward. After a drone survey satisfied there were no explosives at the entrance – a blown-out storage room – my partner and I rushed over to secure the entry point. The platoon swept up the stairs, clearing the floors room by room, until the building was secure. The sniper team took position on one of the higher floors. We waited a floor below for the sun to rise higher and our armored units to arrive.

We didn’t wait long before one of the drone specialists saw movement as he peered through a window. Hamas operatives were sneaking from the old complex. We had caught them by surprise. The order came down, and a sniper opened fire, killing one of the men. A teen lookout, possibly around 14 years old, darted over to the mouth of the main road at the boundary line. I fired at the ground nearby to scare him off. Another man appeared in the sandy depression. As he ran, I shot him in the leg, but I mistakenly believed I had missed. He stumbled as more gunfire rang – another marksman and I put two more rounds into his torso. I watched through my scope as he nestled into a dirt mound and ceased movement. A moment later, my partner opened fire on another man. The dust cleared, and we waited, and watched.

The young man I had killed couldn’t have been much older than 18. He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed. My heart sank when inspection of a bag dropped by one of the men revealed foodstuffs inside.

Was he actually Hamas? What if he was just a civilian desperate for the food we had abandoned in our old complex? Did we really have enough intelligence to use deadly force?

Two more men in civilian garb ran from the old complex to the main road entrance. I had clear shots on them, but declined to take them – I felt too uncertain about the possibility that they were actually civilians.

Covered by fire from tanks, the sandy depression was raked to ensure there were no explosives. We leapfrogged along the mounds of dirt until we reached the main building in the old complex. Once again we began to clear the building, room by room – when suddenly one of our squads was alerted by shouting. Two men called “stop” in Arabic, appearing from behind furniture with a makeshift white flag. They were captured and held, as we finished clearing the rest of the building. No more surprises.

As we waited for the combat engineers to arrive, a preliminary interrogation revealed the truth about all the men we had encountered that day. One of the men we had captured wasn’t just a Hamas operative, he was an official member of its military wing, the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades. The group had been ordered by the Zeitoun Battalion commander to gather food, supplies, and intelligence at the complex.

We shooed any stray animals from the building before the engineers came, then moved on to the next building, then the next, until all three were mined. We withdrew from the complex, and once all our forces and the detainees were clear, the buildings were detonated. A massive dust cloud rose in the air, then fell into a haze as dusk set in.

Harrowing scenes from reserve duty 

THE NEXT day another platoon returned to the bodies at the site, only to make a gruesome discovery. The dogs had gotten to them first. They had feasted on their flesh; the puppies we had found so adorable and precocious had used their small stature to enter under the corpse rib cages. A group of Palestinian men arrived under a white banner claiming to be from UNRWA, and were allowed to collect the remains.

A day later, another group of men attempted to sneak into our zone of control in the early hours of the morning. A sniper shot one of them in the leg, and the wounded man and another retreated into Zeitoun. The third remained behind with his arms up. He was detained. These were civilians, paid by the father of one of the men we had captured to collect a body. An Arabic-speaking soldier asked him why he hadn’t moved to safety in the south, through the humanitarian corridor. He needed money to pay Hamas to let him pass. They still exerted enough control to extort civilians.

The man was eventually released southward, without the people he was sent to collect. He didn’t know that not only were they alive, further intelligence gleaned from the interrogation of the al-Qassam member soon led to an airstrike that killed six members of the Hamas military wing. Another discovery by a different brigade added another dimension to Hamas operation in the area: A few hundred meters from the old complex was a hidden cache of brand-new Kalashnikov rifles. Hamas hid armories around Gaza, for plainclothes operatives like the men we encountered to use when they had gathered enough intelligence, and had gotten close enough to shed the perfidious charade of being civilians.

“Those weapons were probably meant to be used against us,” said one officer.

Finally, the time came to leave. One of our drone specialists had grown attached to one of the puppies at the rear base. He wanted to bring her with him, to save her from the harsh environment, before she had grown up to be just as savage as the others. Yet he didn’t have place to keep her at home. Perhaps Gaza was where she was meant to be, with the other wild animals.

As we rode back to Israel on open Humvees in broad daylight, we cheered in our good mood. Despite the smiles, I was still scarred by the momentary fear that I had killed a civilian. For Hamas, which was willing to send young men to their deaths as cannon fodder, which was willing to have all of Gaza razed in its war against Israel rather than surrender, life was cheap. It was just to kill Hamas terrorists, who sought to kill Israelis and refused to release Israelis hostages, and who would make any peace with the Palestinians impossible. Yet life was not cheap to me. Even if Hamas and its ilk did not value life, the life of men like the one I killed still had innate value. Like Gaza, their lives were full of potential – he could have had a family, loved, studied, a career. Instead, he died among the ruins of a place that could have been teeming with orchards, hotels, and tourists as a jewel of the Mediterranean.

In taking such lives, even if legitimate, the innate value in them must be respected by ensuring that not only fellow soldiers be saved by their slaying, but further death and destruction not befall Gaza. His death, all the destruction we had witnessed, had to be a necessary step in service of ending the war in victory against Hamas and peace with the Palestinians, so there would be no future war and reason for us to return to Gaza a third time.