Major Yair, commander of a sniper team that served in Gaza, described his experiences to Ayala Hasson on Kan News. Yair’s brigade left the battlefield one month ago but he received a call from his brigade commander about another brigade that needed a complement of snipers. 

“He said the brigade number, which by chance is where my brother serves, so I couldn’t refuse,” Yair said. “I contacted my men in the company and they ran to help immediately. Some were even mad that I didn’t call them. We got together and we went in to help in the northern Gaza Strip,” Yair told Kan News.

“Our main job was to neutralize armed [terrorists],” he said.

Hasson asked how the snipers were able to determine whether a person was a friend or foe.

Major Yair explained that the Hamas terrorists would wander around unarmed in civilian clothes.  

“When they see the IDF forces, they retrieve a previously concealed weapon from a nearby house and attack us,” he said. “With help from lookouts and the Air Force, we can take them out quickly.”

Hasson raised the issue of the three hostages who were misidentified and killed by IDF fire. Major Yair responded to her point by describing one of the battles in Beit Hanoun early in the war in which six terrorists were killed. one of them wearing tzitzit, a fringed garment worn by Jewish men as commanded in the Bible. He described the garment as military issue green tzitzit. 

“The first thought when we saw the bodies of the terrorists was that maybe he was a hostage,” Major Yair said. “The second thought was that there was nothing different that we could have done under those circumstances. Upon closer inspection, thank God, we verified that he was a terrorist.”

When asked how the terrorist acquired the Jewish garment, he replied, “They may have been stolen from one of the checkpoints, maybe he realized what he was wearing and he tried to disguise himself.” 

“In battle, you make an effort and trust that the soldier knows how to take all this into consideration before he pulls the trigger and will work fast enough to not miss the terrorist.”