The commander of the IDF’s Battalion 101 in the Paratroopers Brigade revealed the complexity involved in West Bank operations during an interview with Walla published on Friday.
The commander, referred to as Lt.-Col. R. summarized a recent, intense period of operations in an area where the proximity of Palestinian villages to Israeli communities is completely different from that faced by soldiers in Gaza or Lebanon.
When asked what the greatest challenge for him in the sector was, he replied that “in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, the sector boundaries are clear.”
“You know what your vital assets are, you know what you need to defend, you know where the enemy is, and you know where you are,” he continued. “In the West Bank, how do you protect so many communities across such a large area?”
He added that as a battalion commander, he was responsible for a large sector of territory spanning 20 kilometers by 20 kilometers. “The nearest company commander from the battalion headquarters is 40 minutes away,” he said. “In Gaza, if your subordinate encounters terrorists, you’re with him within a minute. I was in many situations, and in the West Bank, it’s different. You have to protect many vital assets.”
'No less complex than attacking deep inside Lebanon'
According to Lt.-Col. R., “it’s a challenge no less complex than attacking deep inside Lebanon.”
“So how do you protect so many vital assets across such a large area? You need every force with you to conduct itself at the level of a battalion commander in the field. You have no other option - you must trust it. Think about the fact that even for a company commander, it can take 15 minutes to reach an incident in his sector.”
Over the past two months, the battalion carried out four operations, during which two terrorists were killed, and 26 suspects involved in terrorist activity were arrested.
In addition, the battalion recently conducted an operation in which 40 wanted individuals were arrested overnight.
In another operation in the village of Kafr Aqab, Lt. Col. R. recounted that “an entire battalion walked four kilometers through the village. That demonstrated governance. It sent the message.”
Lt. Col. R. described another incident in which a terrorist attempted to carry out an attack in the settlement of Ateret. “The fighters were right near the entrance to the community. A patrol that rushed there within three minutes encountered the terrorist and killed him. Another terrorist tried to move up toward the farm - and he too was killed.”
When asked how the West Bank sector looks now compared to past situations, and whether it is more or less volatile, Lt. Col. R. said that it is “not the West Bank [he] knew from the past.”
Elaborating on the changing atmosphere, he said that “entering the refugee camps of Balata, Askar, and Jenin today is not the same as it used to be. In the past, we would enter with large forces, and today, a force under the command of a squad leader or a platoon commander carries out arrests in the casbah of Nablus,” asserting that “today, the IDF has freedom of action.”