“I hear you like stories,” he said to me. “You need to meet my guys. Especially Ehud. But I warn you; he’s something else.”

Ehud isn’t actually his name. But this small special forces unit needs to be extremely cautious about their identities, so I’m going to give them all new names for now. The unit of twelve is made up of reservists, all of whom are already exempt from duty for various reasons, but chose to show up anyway. We’ll call the commander Yoav.

We found Ehud at the edge of the forest encampment, standing alone with Motti. Like Yoav, the two stood with perfect posture, and a prepared stance—but in such a natural way that they also came across as relaxed.

Motti grew up in a Chassidic home, and is a father of three.

“The third was born at the beginning of the war,” he told me. “I missed his birth. Our unit was one of the first to enter Gaza, and no one was able to contact us until four days later. I made it home right in time for his bris.”

“Oh wow,” I didn’t know what to say. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you. How often to you get to see him now?”

Motti’s eyes grew fiery, “us fighters gave up everything,” he said. “We gave our whole lives and spirit to fighting for Israel. I go home sometimes, but many of my friends can’t anymore. They are sent home—but they can no longer connect with that life, so they come right back. There is nothing left to us but winning this war.”

Yoav quipped, “Ehud came back here with three fractured ribs.”

I looked at Ehud in shock. Never mind the running and fighting—a packed IDF ceramic vest weighs around 70 lbs, and they don’t get to take it off, at all, for days on end. That on top of broken ribs?!

“Meh, it holds me together,” Ehud responded to my bewilderment, and began to tell us his story.

Ehud lives in Ashdod. On the morning of October 7th, as soon as he heard about the terrorist infiltration, he grabbed what he had: a small handgun and a sword.

“A sword?!” I interrupted.

“In case he ran out of bullets,” Yoav explained. “There’s not much in a handgun.”

I listened in awe as Ehud continued. No one brings a sword to a gun battle unless they plan to fight until their last breath. Ehud sped towards the fire knowing that might be his case. He battled terrorists in Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Mefalsim for 24 hours straight. Thankfully he was given a loaded IDF riffle before it was too late. In the morning, he called to check on his mother. She was ok, but scared, and out of food.

Ehud couldn’t let his mother go hungry, and he wanted to comfort her. So instead of taking a break from the fighting for some sleep, he drove up to Ashdod, and brought her groceries.

“On my way back,” he told me. “I stopped for gas, just outside Ashdod. There were a few civilians there, but no other soldiers or police. I was filling my car, when out of nowhere, four armed Hamas terrorists appeared.”

Ehud fought and eliminated the four terrorists entirely on his own, averting another massacre. It was a miracle that he had been at the gas station in that moment, but the moment didn’t allow him time to pause or appreciate it. He checked that everyone was unharmed, and then sped back to the frontlines to continue fighting—and couldn’t stop.

“You saw stuff,” I said.

“Yeah,” he nodded. There was a silent understanding that the events of those first two days are carved into his mind’s eye so sharply that it pains him to rest.

“He kept going until about six weeks ago,” said Yoav. “We were in an intense battle, and an RPG hit him, right in the chest. His heavily-packed vest absorbed the shock, but he broke some ribs. Still kept fighting.”

Immediately after the hit, the team medic gave Ehud a shot of narcotics. It was meant to help him with the pain until he could reach an evacuation point, but instead he kept going.

“About three days later, I realized something was wrong,” Ehud recalled. “So I left Gaza and went to the hospital.”

Ehud was hospitalized for three weeks, before he couldn’t take it anymore, and went right back to his team.

“Broken ribs don’t heal that fast,” I noted. “Does it still hurt?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not what matters now.”

Motti chimed back in. “We have nothing to go home to, until we win this war. It’s our entire existence. We can’t let this ever happen again.”

“Do you see that you’re winning?” I asked.

“We see the progress,” Ehud answered. “We see how they’ve lost control, and how much easier it is for us to enter and battle on their territory now. They know they can’t smuggle in any more weapons. We’re seeing results.”

“Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel?”

“No, not yet,” said Motti. “We need to keep fighting for that.”

It crushed me to hear that. After everything they’ve been through, and everything they managed to accomplish, I so badly wanted these heroes to at least get a glimpse of the light ahead. I wanted Motti to be able to go home and relax with his baby cuddled in his arms. I wanted Ehud to sit and eat at his mother’s dinner table, no longer needing to reassure her. I wanted Yoav to be able to say that he lead a unit to victory—that they brought the hostages home, and that Hamas was now a relic of the past. We were 320 days in to the war; it was time to see a light.

“The light is the people we fight for,” Ehud broke the silence. “And our homeland, and the help from Above.”

“And we will win,” Motti reassured. “Just let us keep fighting for it.”

——

Yoav, Ehud, and Motti urgently need the new surveillance system and two specialty drones for their unit. Their team is made entirely of reservists who are long exempt from duty but continue to show up every day. They are frequently on the front lines of dangerous battles, and have taken part in monumental rescue missions.

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