Under a rug in a Gaza house, IDF soldiers found a well leading to the bodies of four hostages

JABALIYA — Three drones patrolled above us in languid circles. A smaller quadcopter took off from a four-story structure, which a Hamas commander had called home until Parachute Battalion 202 burst into the Jabaliya refugee camp two weeks ago.

Today, Lt. Col. Almog Rotem uses the building in the northern Gaza Strip as a temporary command post as his forces continue to move toward the sea, driving out organized Hamas resistance.

On the other side of a narrow alley – now strewn with chunks of concrete and metal, clothing and the detritus of urban fighting – is a smaller house with an irregular hole dug into one side. Inside, a small children’s bicycle and a wheelchair lie slumped among the concrete blocks.

A family lived in this house until they left before Israeli paratroopers arrived. But among the children’s furniture and toys, the house hid a horrible secret.

Last Thursday, the bodies of four Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 – Itzhak Gelerenter, Amit Buskila, Ron Benjamin and Shani Louk – were discovered by Israeli army troops in a tunnel dug under the same house.

Under the carpet

The battalion chose to operate in this section of the densely populated refugee camp, which had not yet been conquered by the IDF, due to the analysis carried out by the battalion’s intelligence officer.

Through his study of intelligence, the officer “noticed that there were things we were interested in,” Rotem said, “and we realized there was something here.”

The paratroopers, fighting under Division 98, attacked Hamas positions from the east, focusing on well-prepared enemy positions connected through holes in the walls of nearby houses.

“There’s not a house here that we haven’t found at least five improvised explosive devices waiting in,” Rotem said.

“The holes create a network between the buildings,” he explained, as the smell of death hung in the air. “Here, terrorists know how to set up ambushes in massacre zones, in alleys, in courtyards.”

“We encountered an enemy who was a little more determined and more ready,” explained one of the company commanders. “We took them down very quickly. But it was a system that worked. When a drone appeared, so did mortars or rockets. If there was sniper fire, then there were RPGs. »

“They’ve settled in well here,” Rotem said. “But we were able to neutralize obstacles, bypass them, emerge from unexpected directions and reach the situation in which this enemy is destroyed.”

Dozens of Hamas fighters were killed by Rotem’s troops, among the 400 eliminated by the division in Jabaliya.

“Nothing can stop an IDF battalion or brigade,” he said.

Once the enemy force is defeated, the troops must embark on the dangerous job of checking every structure for weapons, intelligence, and of course, tunnels.

A platoon commanded by Cpt. Roy Beit Yaakov entered the booby-trapped house next to Rotem headquarters to search it. Even after eight months of incessant fighting in the Gaza Strip, troops did everything possible to check every cupboard and corner.

Beit Yaakov insisted on tearing out a carpet in one of the rooms and found a square metal door in the middle of the floor.

He reported over the radio that he had found a tunnel shaft, and Rotem secured the area and summoned a force from the Combat Engineer Corps’ elite Yahalom unit. The force, known as Samech 2, was commanded by Captain Aleph, who can only be referred to by his Hebrew initial.

Beneath the trapdoor, Yahalom’s forces discovered a shaft approximately ten meters deep, with a metal ladder bolted to one of the corners.

It seemed no different than the dozens of other shafts they had discovered, but Aleph insisted on using every available tool at his disposal to fully search the tunnel.

“We discovered explosives at the entrance to the well,” Aleph told The Times of Israel. “We began operating underground, carefully, with determination, using our intuition. We discovered several suspicious areas, which ultimately led us to locate the hostages and extract them that same night. »

“After confirming that they were our hostages, there is no greater pride than that,” Aleph continued. “There is no greater privilege. And we want to continually continue to repatriate more and more hostages.”

“There is no one more proud than us to be able to bring back the bodies of Israelis for a proper burial in Israel,” Rotem said.

A few days later, Beit Yaakov was killed in friendly fire which also claimed the lives of four of his soldiers.

One of the company commanders emphasizes that his troops are not exhausted, even after eight months of war: “They are not tired. We are in a war routine. This is our world.

“The discovery of the hostages gave them a second wind, and the troops really understand the mission here,” he said. “They are willing to do the work because it’s bigger than us. We still have hostages to recover.

While skeptics in Israel and abroad say the IDF faces an uphill battle against an organization that will continue to reappear wherever its forces leave, Rotem said he is not worried about the pace of the fighting.

“There is no rush,” he told The Times of Israel. “It’s a long war, requiring a lot of thought and planning. I trust my superiors to do proper planning and use the right manpower at the right time.

Victory will come, he said, if Israel destroys Hamas’ center of gravity: its population and infrastructure.

And they will do so in accordance with the necessary laws and values, the officers said.

“We pay a lot of attention to international law,” said a company commander. “It doesn’t bother us. At the end of the day, we accomplish our missions and when we encounter terrorists, they die.”

Earlier this week, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defense minister for alleged war crimes.

Rotem was confident that his troops were fighting the way he and their country expected.

“My soldiers are Israeli and they grow up with the values ​​of their home: a sense of mission, love of homeland and love of neighbor,” he said.

“We encountered many enemy forces,” he continued. “We took away a lot of detainees. I have not heard of a single case where soldiers acted out of revenge or abused them in any way. I saw them operate with determination, with professionalism and above all with proportion.

“I know who my soldiers are and I know who their commanders are. »