![]() All the stones in the area were now specks and the trees had become sawdust. The latter yelled back, “I’m doing it! I keep pressing the button but it is not working.” The commander roared at him that he was a traitor and ‘decorated’ him with numerous elaborate and eloquent Arabic curses.Įffi Eitam reported back to Rav Eliyahu that right after the last soldier had crossed the perimeter and sufficiently distanced himself, all the bombs began exploding one after the other around the four sides of the mine field. The local Hizbollah commander was shouting over and over again that the terrorist on watch duty should activate the laser arc. He put his phone on speaker so that everyone nearby could hear the quarreling voices and the screams. One of the Military Intelligence officers at the Northern Command Center was listening in on the terrorists’ communication network. ![]() “Go! Leave! Right now! This instant! Start running!” ![]() On the other hand, he had complete pure faith in the power of true Torah sages, and he knew Rav Eliyahu well enough to know that he would never dare utter such a demand if he wasn’t fully confident that his prayer had been accepted. “Wait a few minutes, but stay on the line,” was Rav Eliyahu’s reply, and he turned away to immerse himself totally in prayer.Īfter the few minutes he returned to the phone, and said in a gentle tranquil tone: “I’m holding tight…take them out now!”Įitam, who understood only too well the lethal destructiveness of this type of explosives, of course realized the implications of giving the command to flee. He concluded with “Great Rabbi, we need the power of your honor’s prayers.” As concisely as possible he described the deadly situation of his soldiers. He picked up the receiver and on the line was Effi Eitam. But what could he do to help?Īt 3:00 AM the house phone started ringing in the home of the former Rishon L’Tzion (Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu). He grasped right away that the lives of 15 of his soldiers was hanging by a thread. The brigade commander, Effi Eitam, was immediately informed. With a trembling voice he called Pikud Hatzafon – the northern Israel IDF command center, located in Tsfat - and reported their dire situation. Furthermore, he said, the Hizbollah soldiers positioned on the surrounding hills could open fire at any time. The officer leading the mission, who had identified the mine field, having been taught about them in a course, sadly told the squad there was no way to exit the mine field without being killed. The densely packed powerful explosives were capable of killing large numbers of soldiers at once and injuring many more. If any one of the terrorist watchers noticed Israeli soldiers having entered the area, he could activate the encircling laser arc. Not by wire or anything else physical a hidden laser “arc” surrounded the entire area, and any attempt to cross the perimeter created by the unseen arc would detonate all the bombs simultaneously.Īlso, on top of the hill nearest to the ‘field’ was situated a lookout station of Hizbollah soldiers. Rather, all the bombs were connected together. What makes this type of mine field so especially dangerous is that it is not a matter of an individual touching or stepping upon a single bomb and the hair trigger fuse causes it to explode immediately. They would place these bombs among the natural stones of the area, and wait for IDF forces to enter the “mine field” and be encircled by the explosives. They would surround an area with a large amount of powerful explosives, which they painted and camouflaged to look like ordinary big stones. The mine fields in Lebanon were a clever plot by Iran’s militant terrorist force, called Hizbollah, to kill and maim Israeli soldiers. ![]() In a fear-filled whisper he informed them that they were within a life threatening mine field. As they were crossing a certain low area between hills, the officer in charge suddenly signaled them urgently to halt. One time, a squad of fifteen soldiers from his brigade entered Lebanon in the middle of the night on a secret mission. In the mid and late 1990’s, he was the commanding officer of a brigade within Utzvat HaGalil – the Israel Defense Forces division that is responsible for the ongoing security in the western sector of the border between Israel and Lebanon. While there in the rabbi’s home, he told the grieved family the following story, in which he was personally involved. Effi Eitam came to Jerusalem to fulfill the mitzvah of comforting mourners. ![]() This entry was posted in Weekly Chasidic Story on by michal avrahamovĭuring the Seven Days of Mourning after the passing of the former chief rabbi of Israel, HaRav Mordechai Eliyahu, in 2010, former IDF general and Knesset member Mr. ![]()
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