Days before Passover, as missiles continued to fall from Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen, heads of local security teams from across southern Israel gathered for an advanced Magen 48 training session in Be’eri-one of the communities most devastated on October 7, 2023.
Moving through burnt homes, volunteer security teams conducted realistic, scenario-based exercises designed to prepare them for future attacks. Many participants were not just trainees-they were survivors. They had faced Hamas terrorists, lost friends, and fought to defend their communities on that horrific day.
On that infamous Saturday morning, Ehud Dribben was among those who acted immediately. Without waiting to be called up, he got into his car with fellow fighters and drove south into the line of fire to save lives. In the days that followed, he spent over 100 days engaged in the fight against Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
From the horrors he witnessed, Dribben-who has spent three decades training special forces, law enforcement, and security personnel-founded Magen 48 with one clear objective: "Magen 48 was established to stop the next October 7th. I saw with my own eyes that communities with trained and prepared security teams survived. Those without them were overrun. My mission is to ensure that every town, city, and village in Israel is ready-so that next time, we will be prepared."
Since then, Magen 48 has conducted near-weekly training sessions across the country, training 67 communities and over 1,500 civilian first responders-local volunteers who now serve as the first line of defense for their families and neighbors.
This training in Be’eri marked the first time exercises were conducted within the devastated neighborhoods themselves-a powerful reminder of what is at stake.
Ari Briggs, who partnered with Dribben to bring the vision to life, said: "On October 7th, we learned that it’s not enough to wait for help to arrive. Communities must be able to hold the line until it does."
Magen 48 is now racing to establish a national, high-tech training center to scale its operations and prepare communities across Israel for future threats.
Briggs continued: "Communities like Erez, which received training before the war, were able to fend off terrorist infiltrations. We’ve proven that Magen 48 doesn’t just train responders-it restores the confidence that allows families to return home and rebuild. But over 600 communities across Israel still lack this level of preparedness. Without the ability to scale rapidly, they remain exposed."
"While the IDF has achieved extraordinary successes, we can never again afford complacency. Every Israeli community must have both a defense plan and the capability to execute it-until help arrives. History has taught us that we must always be ready for the worst-case scenario. Because when communities are prepared-lives are saved."