Rotem Inbar – served as a combatant in the Special Recon Commando of the Nahal Infantry Brigade, served on the “Sufa” Outpost.
He was wounded on October 7 when the terrorists infiltrated their base.
“South of the Gaza Strip, in front of Rafah, the unit’s role was to protect the surrounding settlements
Half of the fighters went home that weekend.
He goes to the border at five in the morning and the Rapid Response Squad  is ready on standby. Normal routine procedure.
Suddenly there was a terrifying barrage of rockets from all directions. Before the siren we heard booms and realized that something was not normal, we got into our uniforms, took our weapons and ran to a protected area.
Many rockets fell near them.
The Company Commander was distraught, updated that there was an intrusion, we were unaware of the numbers,  but we went on heightened alert.
The special lookout post reported that she had no cameras.
Non-stop shooting. We jumped to the front guardhouse, heard a shot, tried to understand
One of the fighters recognized someone suspicious.
See an RPG, the outpost is surrounded but we had no idea that was the case.
Amir the senior officer went up for observation.
The rear guard suffered the hardest blow.
A battle on three fronts. Attacked from all directions.
We had shots, whistles inside the outpost.
It took us a few seconds to come to, we realized that they had inserted their rifle barrels in the holes and we realized that we had no protected place.
Our outpost was under a three-pronged attack.
The terrorists manage to break through the gate. The fighters realize that only the dining room remains the most protected.
The wounded lie in the back, Rotem sees the terrorists right in front of his eyes. He hears the grenade hit the floor
Two meters from me, I realized it could kill me
There was a strong barrage of shots, I aimed my rifle towards to the entrance
I had a feeling that if I left the door no one would get out alive.
The grenades kept coming at us.
One of the grenades exploded next to me, the whole leg was in shreds, they put a tourniquet on me.
Excruciating pain.
We are being shouted at in Hebrew, raise your hands..
The grenades did not stop.
The terrorists managed to blow up the back door of the dining room.
Only at half past one did a combat helicopter arrive. Fires a missile from the air while the soldiers are below.
We felt hope, that there was a chance we would win.
Then the fighters of Shayetet 13 (Naval Commando) at 14:30 broke into the outpost and the helicopter arrived to evacuate the wounded.
It took them several hours to take control of the outpost.
In the end, unfortunately, the civilian residents were hurt, but we did our best.”

The First in his Platoon to Face the Enemy

The Unyielding Courage of Sergeant Shalom Shitrit

Sergeant Shalom Shitrit, a valiant fighter in the Golani Brigade, exemplifies the triumph of the human will as he recounts the harrowing events that forever altered the course of his life. His willingness to embark on the long, complicated journey to recovery – which includes relearning to manage and live daily life without a leg – is a testament to the strength that lies within his heart and the hearts of those who have faced the “Swords of Iron” War.

Right after the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7th, 2023, Sergeant Shalom Shitrit was called to duty. He was to enter the Gaza Strip and confront and fight the very essence and the source of terrorism on the battlefield.

As he begins to recount his experience, Shalom’s initial words echo the disbelief that he survived the ordeal. “I still don’t understand how I am alive,” he says, and you immediately get the feeling that what he is about to share is a story of unimaginable bravery and the profound challenges that lay ahead.

Shalom was the first in his platoon to face the enemy, mere meters away from a terrorist who shot him, wounding him critically. In the chaos and violence of that moment, for Shalom there was only excruciating pain and the quick realization of the severity of his injuries. He was evacuated back to Israel and Israeli medical teams fought for his life for an entire week. The gravity of the situation was such that doctors decided to advise Shalom’s family to come and bid him farewell. Hope was dim. But Shalom proved tenacious. He wanted to live. He defied the odds and clung to life, emerging from the brink of death.

“When I opened my eyes for the first time since Gaza, I thought I was still in the war,” Shalom shares, revealing the disorientation that accompanied his return to consciousness. The desire to rise and rejoin his fellow soldiers in the ongoing battle was met with the harsh reality that his body would not allow him to do so. In a poignant moment, he lifted the blanket to find the absence of his right leg, a painful revelation that struck deep into his being.

As Shalom grappled with the shock of his newfound reality, he says “It felt like I had lost my leg to help save the other soldiers who were still fighting.” Amid personal tragedy, his thoughts and feelings were still connected to Israel’s greater cause and his friends in the military.
From the severe wounds that almost claimed his life to the unimaginable challenges of rehabilitation, Shalom’s story shows the enduring power of the human spirit. As he forges ahead on his path to recovery, we will be there with him at every step of the way and ensure that he continues to pursue his dreams, whatever they may be.

The UAV may have shattered into pieces, but I did not!”

Capt. (res.) Liam Spielman 26 years old from Netanya. He was a reserves officer in the Nahal Infantry Brigade.
He was critically wounded on November 11, 2023 by a Hezbollah U.A.V (unmanned aerial vehicle) on the northern border.
He is a fitness instructor by profession and when the war broke out, he was in the Congo, training the local army.

When he heard the news on October 7th, he left everything and flew back to Israel. Although he had not received a call-up, he asked to enlist. His regiment was occupying a sector on the northern border near Kibbutz Yiftach. He was responsible for 20 combatants.

Liam says that he recognized the UAV.  He and his men, suddenly saw a large enemy fighter plane/jet flying low, he managed to identify and warn the soldiers to evacuate quickly, but he himself was not able to make it and the drone crashed a few meters away from him. As a result, he flew about 10 meters in the air.  His legs were critically wounded, his main artery was torn in his right leg, and he also suffered multiple injuries to his spine, when a piece of shrapnel from the war head on the drone penetrated his back damaging two vertebrae and tearing his small intestine. He lost so much blood that he had no blood pressure at all. When they evacuated him, he died a clinical death on the way and they landed him at Ziv Hospital in Safed (because they didn’t have time to fly him to Haifa’s Rambam Hospital) the medical team had already declared death, but they did not give up on him and fought for his life. The doctors told his parents that it was either saving him or his leg.  The team at Ziv hospital consulted a senior vascular specialist, who happened to be in the north at that moment, left everything and quickly drove to a hospital to operate on him and was able to save his leg.  He was unconscious for 10 days, a month in intensive care.

After four days he was moved to Tel Hashomer where he continued his rehabilitation.  Recently he was released from Tel Hashomer to continue his rehab at Tel Aviv’s Beit Halochem, which he has joined as a member and has begun signing up at the Young Veterans Club for different activities.

“I was with two soldiers at the outpost, they spotted something big in the distance, probably a fighter jet. The soldiers asked if it was ours, I recognized that it was not. Because it was flying too low to be ours and because of the noise it was making, that is different from ours. We’ve encountered explosive drones before but this one was of a different magnitude, and huge.

We started running, less than 10 seconds, it came diving down quickly, while we were running to a protected area, we were wearing protective gear.  It crashed with the warhead on top of us. I was conscious. The medical staff said I arrived without blood pressure. They fought to stabilize me. The soldier was in front of me and I took most of the impact, being thrown up and far from the explosion. It crashed behind us.

I suffered a very severe right leg injury with additional injuries to my other leg, stomach, back. The main artery caused a burst of bleeding. A piece of shrapnel entered under the ceramic vest in the lower back and crushed several vertebrae and came out the other side and hit the intestines – a near fatal injury. I was conscious, I announced that there were others wounded, I did not feel the legs, I did not understand the situation because I did not feel them. A tourniquet that I had in my pocket helped me, treatment in a protected space, they discovered internal bleeding in my back, and realized that I was in critical condition and decided to evacuate. In such a situation you act like a robot. I imagined that at some point I would get injured in this fight, and scenarios passed me by and when it happened, I just acted out the event as much as I could. The medical teams saved me, I was dying in the evacuation itself, so they dropped me off at Ziv Hospital (which was evacuated for security reasons), but thanks to the fact that there were no other patients there, the team was able to focus on my treatment.”