Benny Weiser, 23 years old, from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion in the Kfir Brigade, was rushed to duty on Simchat Torah to the Gaza region together with his officers course members and eliminated terrorists who ambushed him and his friends.
The course commander, Hadar, realized that there was a bigger event here than they thought and found out where they were needed. They arrived at Kisufim where they stormed into the town. They went through the houses to clear them and came across shocking sights, burnt houses as well as booby-trapped houses.
After a day of fighting, they went to the town of Patish where one of the residents asked them to rescue his son: "My son was at a party in Re'im, he is injured and needs rescue. I have his location," he told the soldiers.
They immediately went to Re'im and on the way they came across explosive devices placed by the terrorists on access routes.
When they arrived at the party area, they saw suspicious figures in the bushes in the distance. The soldiers, who did not know who it was and thought that it might be the survivors, shouted "IDF, IDF". The unidentified individuals fired on them and they realized that they had walked into an ambush by terrorists.
They managed to get out of the vehicle before it was hit by fire from all directions, "There was a moment when we feared that we would run out of ammunition, die and they would kidnap our bodies to Gaza," said Weiser, adding that there was "crazy noise, no reception, we can't get any backup."
"Hadar was injured first and made himself a tourniquet that saved his leg. He could not fight in his condition, but he took it upon himself to try to get a rescue by calling Nachman Dayan and the Gefen battalion," he added.
A few minutes later, another member of the team was injured while throwing a grenade at the terrorists. He also made himself a tourniquet and in order not to disturb the soldiers due to pain, he ground his teeth so hard they broke.
"22 minutes passed that seemed like an eternity, suddenly it became quiet," they said. At this point they thought they were done fighting, but when they went out to check the area, a third soldier was struck by a bullet in the neck and fell. Weiser turned towards two terrorists who surprised them, switched the weapon to automatic mode and eliminated both of them on the spot.
The soldier who was injured in the neck, was taken to a hospital where he underwent an operation that saved his life. A few days ago the soldiers met and decided to find out what happened to the wounded man for whom they went to Re'im, and discovered he had been murdered well before they arrived.
"We didn't succeed in the mission but later when people asked why we went out there, I say that if we had only a small chance to save someone, there's no way we wouldn't have tried," Weiser concluded.