Between the Blasts and the Prayers

A YATAR Commander’s Story of Fire, Brotherhood, and Responsibility

Master Sergeant A still remembers the dust in the air before the first blast. It was July, deep inside Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, where his YATAR team was operating alongside the 97th Battalion—Netzach Yehuda, the only fully Orthodox combat unit in the IDF. The mission: identify terrorist tunnel shafts and map out houses used by Hamas operatives.

“It was quiet—too quiet,” he says. “We’d gone house to house, clearing passages, checking for signs of movement.” Then the ground shook. An explosive device had detonated directly on the force.

“There wasn’t time to think. You hear the blast and you move,” A recalls. “Soldiers were down. We immediately shifted from search to rescue.”

As the team converged to evacuate the wounded, a second explosive was triggered—followed instantly by gunfire from multiple directions. An ambush.

“They knew exactly what they were doing. They waited until we ran to help the injured. That’s when they hit again.”

In the chaos, several of the unit’s ATVs were damaged. But the team pressed forward under fire.

Then came the moment that changed everything.

Shaked Tzemach was wounded. Ben, from the same team, was killed.

“He was right behind us,” A says, his voice low. “There’s no time to react emotionally. You tell yourself: move, evacuate, save who you can.”

Under relentless gunfire, Master Sgt. A took command of the evacuation. Shaked and Ben were lifted onto one of the remaining ATVs. “I told my guys: ‘We are not leaving anyone behind—not the living, not the fallen.’”

Seconds turned to what felt like hours as they navigated fire, smoke, and debris to reach the extraction point. Within minutes—though A swears it felt longer—they reached the helicopter.

“I don’t think I breathed until the blades lifted,” he says. “We loaded Shaked and Ben and prayed they’d make it out.”

Ben did not.

Shaked survived.

Days later, when Shaked was recovering in the hospital, Master Sgt. A walked into his room.

“He looked at me and said, ‘You came in for me under fire.’ And I told him, ‘Of course I did. That’s who we are.’”

Since that visit, the two have formed a deep bond—one forged in smoke and shrapnel, strengthened in a hospital ward. Today, Shaked is just days away from making a full recovery and returning home.

“That’s what keeps us going,” A says. “The fact that he’s alive. The fact that we didn’t leave him there. That’s victory in the middle of pain.”

And then he adds something he rarely says aloud: “We don’t do this alone. YATAR exists because people believe in us. Our vehicles, our gear, our ability to evacuate under fire—it’s all made possible by those who stand with us from far away.”

As Yom Kippur approaches, Master Sgt. A draws a line from the battlefield to the soul of a nation. “Pidyon kaparot isn’t just about coins and chickens. It’s about taking responsibility for another life. Our donors—whether they know it or not—are part of that mitzvah. When they equip us, they help save a Jewish soul. Shaked is walking proof.”

He looks toward the south, where the war isn’t over.

“We carry Ben’s memory. We carry the faces of the wounded we rescued. And we carry the support of every person who stands behind us. That is you—our donors. You give us the strength to continue, the courage to face the fire, and the faith that what we do matters. Your belief in us is what makes YATAR possible, and every life we save is a testament to your support.”