Protecting The South

By: Larry Gordon

It is almost three years since those infamous days of October 7, 2023. As the months and years pass, many of us are still wondering how such an event could have transpired and how Israel’s southern communities could have been so flimsily protected from the Hamas terrorists that drove across the border and wreaked unimaginable carnage.

They came in hang gliders and with Toyota pick-up trucks fitted with mounted machine guns. They were an army without uniforms and an Air Force without a single plane. But 3,000 of those savages managed to slaughter people in Kfar Aza, Be’eri, Sderot, and as far as Ashkelon.

Someday there will be an official accounting and reckoning for this fiasco, and blame will be assigned either to the Prime Minister or the IDF generals. From the survivors of these attacks, we learned how even though the IDF was alerted early about the Hamas invasion, it took the army as much as 10–12 hours to respond, causing additional casualties of the mostly unarmed civilians.

The story given for this unusual delay is that Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ruled that before Prime Minister Netanyahu could declare war on Hamas, he had to first hold a full cabinet meeting. The Hamas assault began at 6:30 a.m. and considering that it was Shabbat and a chag, they could not meet until 8 p.m. on Saturday night. That delay caused the deaths of hundreds of additional people. If anyone should be held accountable, it’s the Attorney General as opposed to Bibi. To her, it may seem that only a few hundred extra people lost their lives—at least she made her point.

The dozens of IDF reservists I spoke to told me that as soon as they heard what happened, they jumped into their uniforms, grabbed their guns, and headed south to do whatever they could to help.

This story is in part about Kibbutz Erez, located near the northeast tip of Gaza, where, similar to other communities, some 30 terrorists attacked in unison. But the Erez community had a well-trained army of first responders that mobilized within minutes. They confronted the terrorists and eliminated them. Due to the actions of the first responders, there were no civilian casualties that day at Kibbutz Erez.

The Erez first responders were trained by Ehud Dribben, who is a counter-terror warfare expert and co-founder of Magen 48, a civilian-led initiative and NGO dedicated to training and equipping rapid response security teams in communities across Israel. While there are 67 communities near the Gaza Envelope, there are 600 communities in total that are under constant threat of attack by terrorists. These communities include Judea and Samaria, as well as the northern border near Lebanon.

Ehud Dribben was in New York last week with Ari Briggs, whom I met previously. Since October 7, Ehud and his Magen 48 team have trained more than 1,500 civilian first responders charged with protecting a large number of those 600 communities, with a focus on the 67 located in the south.

According to Ehud and Ari, over 900,000 Israelis live in close proximity to the terrorists in Gaza, making them vulnerable to future attacks. This is where well-trained and armed first responders come into the picture.

One of the additional problems in southern Israel is that many of the kibbutzim did not allow their residents to keep guns in their homes. The bottom line is that when the residents were under assault, they could not reach their weapons in time, which were held in a facility outside of their homes. The result was the murder of hundreds of men, women, and children by Hamas terrorists and people whom the Israelis thought they were living at peace with.

So far, according to Ehud, more than 1,800 men and women have been trained by Magen 48 on how to deal with a terror attack. These civilian first responders are trained to hold off attackers for about two hours, which is the amount of time it would take the IDF to respond to an emergency situation.

While the Israeli government is financing most of Magen 48’s training, Ehud and Ari were in the U.S. to raise additional funds to make their first responder program more widely accessible. As we talked about their training program, I had to wonder aloud why the IDF is always reaching out for equipment and supplies for troops, such as boots, tactical vests, underwear, etc. I asked them why the State of Israel doesn’t send their troops out to the field properly equipped.

Ehud and Ari were in the U.S. essentially to raise funds for an appropriate training hub to provide students with a replica of the terrain where the terrorists are more likely to perpetrate their terror attacks. Magen 48 provides rigorous training and tactical readiness programs for civilian first responders in areas such as streets, residences, front gate attacks, public buildings, and also a firing range for practice.

When we were in Israel a few years ago, our group traveled to a location in the desert where the IDF had constructed a full-sized replica of downtown Gaza City, where special forces were able to train for intense urban warfare. This is similar to what Magen 48 is doing for the civilians, i.e., constructing identical situations in which they are likely to encounter terrorists in their communities so they can respond.

Sure, there will be a thorough investigation into what happened on October 7th and where the fault lies. One of those findings will be that the people who could have held off the terrorists for at least a few hours until the IDF arrived were not ready to protect themselves, their families, or their communities. The result was an unspeakable horror. Of course, there will be ample and justified blame to pass around in many directions. But it all starts with being able to defend yourself.

Magen 48 is already up and running for more than a year, preparing first responders on how to deal with terror attacks. The families who live in these communities are the first line of defense for their people. They are being taught by Ehud, Ari, and their team of IDF veterans who serve as instructors. It’s not only about knowing what to do and when, but most important, it’s about constant drills, updated tactics, and how to be mentally prepared for what the enemies of Israel are prepared to do.

Those who live to destroy Israel do not rest or miss an opportunity to perpetrate terrorist attacks. The military and Israeli police are there to protect the people, but until they arrive, Israelis cannot afford to sit by helplessly waiting for their help. They have to help themselves and protect their people and communities. That means learning how to fight back.

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