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Tavassim

 

They called it "Tavas" and it was the most curious army code- name for a combat activity since it was a truism and an oxymoron all at the same time. "Tavas" was the army parlance for a small armed infantry patrol of the hostile country-side.

 

Sometime during the Israeli invasion of Sothern Lebanon it became obvious that the usual armored patrols were both useless and essentially deathtraps. 

The APC  M-113, nicknamed Zelda, is an armored box that rolls on tracks with the main offensive weapon being the 0.5 inch heavy machine gun mounted on top. Combat personnel enter the vehicle via the posterior ramp which lowers flat for embarkation and is mechanically raised to close the box. It is a highly maneuverable in all terrains and is very adept in muddy conditions. The armor is aluminum so as to save weight and the engine is in front. The floor is lined with sand-bags (thereby obliterating any weight savings thought up by the designers, but useful to minimize land-mine damage). The real firepower of the vehicle is in the hands of the four to six soldiers whose torso, shoulder and helmet-clad heads and personal weapons protrude through the top. When the Zelda is in full charge, tracks churning, Galil assault rifles firing in bursts, and the 0.5  bucking away, it is an awe-inspiring, fearful fighting machine. When the same machine is stuck in a narrow, muddy, Lebanese alley, see-sawing back and forth trying to turn a corner, it becomes a death-trap for the crew, exposed  to any wel-placed sniper or even an RPG-7 in the hands of ill-trained youth. After taking a number of hideous casualties, the Israeli command came up with Tavasim. Small contingents of 5-6 soldiers would exit the strongholds at random intervals and scour the countryside and villages and towns of southern Lebanon. They would look for terrorist activity, search houses designated by Shabac, and ferret out "initiation points" where explosive devices were waiting for the unsuspecting patrol or transport, or water-wagon. They would walk on foot and control the land through stealth and surprise. That was the theory.

 

 

“Tavas" translates as peacock, and the peacock is the most conspicuous of birds. Tavas was supposed to be secretive and blend with the land. That was the oxymoron, since the Lebanese girls watching the stronghold always knew when a Tavas went out. Tavas activity always included a patrol through a designated village, to show the Flag, as it were. That is when it was a peacock.

There was one aspect of military activity that the  Israeli Defense planners did not take into account. The Israeli troops were trained on the concept of the "Purity of the Arms" which meant that civilians, women, and children, were not to be harmed. The guerrillas had no such inhibitions and consequently the Israeli army was at a severe disadvantage.  Children, schools, and Mosques were the cover behind which the guerrillas initiated  their attacks. Their fear of the armed Tavassim diminished when it became  obvious that they never shot at random, and were not a system of terrorism as were the Phallanga or rival Palestinian groups.

Yossi Bergman had changed his colors a few days before. The bus from Tel Aviv discharged a wide-shouldered young man, a typical student, shorts, sandals, and a blue teeshirt,  carrying  a small ruck-sack, into the melee of the Safed bus station. A group of individuals, each different but all joshing and back-clapping, in their middle twenties  to early  thirties, came together. The military truck, a D-500, motor badly abused by the corporal driving it, halted at the curb and the group climbed into the back with the usual bantering about the lousy army trucks. After 30 minutes of rough riding through the hills of the Galilee, the truck entered a military installation, home base for the 801 Battalion. By this time the civilians adjusted their mind-set, they knew who had a new baby, who started a new business, who got canned  out of work and who did not show up for Milu'im, the reserve duty most Israeli men endure year after year after year till they are either too old or too infirm for duty. The 801 battalion was an infantry unit, made of men in their prime, the back-bone of the Israel Defense Force, the likes of which bore the brunt of the failed occupation of South Lebanon. They spoke a multitude of languages, Hebrew and English and Russian and French. The group dismounted from the truck and immediately became a Platoon.

The Advance  Detachment had arrived a day before and completed the setting up of the changeover from a bunch of students, clerks, utility linesmen etc.. into a fighting unit. The men got their KitBags with clothes that did not fit but were clean and immediately set about trading them for size and fit. Webbing, and helmets and coats came out for inspection. Then they lined up for their personal weapons, which were the Galil assault rifle, a hybrid between the American M-16 and the Russian Kalachnikov. Each man checked his weapon’s serial number against the list and for the rest of the Milu'im would be inseparable from his baby. The minority signed for the MAG machine gun, a 12 kg pain in the neck that was designed to provide continuous covering fire for the assault troops. The MAG artists would specialize in extracting single shots, shooting from the hip, from a machine set up to fire 600 rounds a minute. They all received their complement of  7 magazines and sat down to the task of cleaning the oily magazines and filling them with 35  rounds each of ammunition. The officers started moving about solving the inevitable problems (hey, this webbing is lousy, where are the good ones?) and assumed the care of their soldiers. The cooks came up with some coffee, the thick ,black stuff in even blacker cans, veterans of many Milu'im. Lieutenant Yossi Bergman, now clad in olive-green fatigues with epaulets and army boots and the Galil swinging from his shoulder went off to find Headquarters for the Officer’s meeting. He settled with the rest of the officers in the group that was essentially his Company on the rough benches painted inevitably in drab green.

What followed was the same old Routine. The Lieutenant Colonel came up to the podium and faced his officers. Matti Cohen was 42 year old and he had seen his share of wars and campaigns. This was going to be an onerous one because anybody not blinded by the Glory of Power could see that this Lebanon thing was one big bloody fiasco. He knew that this army was based on quick action by men of tremendous potential. This was an army that made the old BlitzKrieg a slow-motion affair. It was not an army that could occupy territory  by instituting a state of Nazi-type terrorism. The truth always came out in the end but now the job at hand was to finish this Milu'im without any casualties. Lieutenant-Colonel Cohen stretched his pointer and slapped it hard on the 1:20,000 scale map spread behind him.

"Pipe down guys.  This is Nabatiyeh and we are going to take it over from the 709 Battalion TONIGHT" Everybody craned their necks and started evaluating the Ground. "Yoram Klein , our new Intelligence officer, will give you the Land and the Forces and so on, so Pay Attention."

And so it went for the next two hours. The land, and the opposition, and the Friendlies and the Hostiles, and the Strategic Points, and location of strongholds, and Vulnerable spots, and communications, and Assignments. The men jotted down furiously in their little Koh-I-Noor spiral notebooks  and soon it was lunch time and Army Rations and eating straight from the can. Finally the officers dispersed each to their Platoon to brief them about the coming 26 days.

 

 

All this was already a few days ago. The 709 Battalion people had whooped with joy as soon as the trucks rolled into the strong-holds which were really a house or two surrounded with dirt perimeter walls piled up  by the D-9 bulldozer. They wasted no time at all in signing the APCs and the Jeeps and Command Cars and everything Military to the newcomers, and in the meantime passed along the information critical to survival in this hostile place. "Don’t go into that corner shop, even though the VCR's there are dirt-cheap, one of our guys was knifed there pretty bad, but they didn’t allow us to demolish the damned place, I guess they want us to use Harsh Words" and "When you turn the corner near the Nabatiyeh cemetery, right in the center of town, watch the fence carefully because they like to throw a grenade at the Jeep, and then run through the graveyard to the Souk and disappear into the alleys. We call that turn Grenade Alley" Then they climbed into the trucks, rolled the tarps up all the way, and the hell with the wind, and pointed their guns at the perimeter. If anyone would even spit suspiciously they would open 360 degree fire, they were not going to die on the way Home.

Lieutenant Yossi checked his webbing, checked the water-bottles, grenades, checked his topographic map, flashlight, night-sight,  placed his Gallil across his torso, jumped up and down to hear if anything was clicking and strode out of the bare dark room to inspect his troops for Tavas activity.

They were all ready for him, standing in a loose line, each checking his buddy's load. First he checked their weapons using a flashlight to see that chambers were empty. Then a brief explanation of the assignment,  the order of movement. and Open Fire orders. They checked communications ("Yonah1 from Red Tavas how do you receive? Loud and clear you finally changed the batteries" "Go to sleep couch-potato, Red Tavas over and out"). Each of the soldiers had his special load in addition to his personal firearm. Jonathan was the Medic and carried the medical bag. Eitan was Radio, and Kadosh was Grenades. Ami carried the Russian RPG-7 anti-armor rocket launcher found in such quantities in the armories of the retreating Syrian army that there was enough to supply the whole Israeli army. Shmuel (Sam to his friends) carried extra magazines, all packed with ammunition for the Gallil. Satisfied, Yossi headed for the east perimeter and waited 15 minutes quietly to let his eyes adjust to the dark. It was three o’clock in the morning and they were a pre-dawn Tavas. Yossi said "Everybody, load and cock and put the safety on." The magazines were rammed in with a slap and the guns were chambered and they all felt for their safeties just to make sure. No one laughed or joked, this was the real thing.

They climbed away from the Company headquarters though the cherry trees and crossed terrace after terrace. This was a bountiful land if it were left alone and not used as a terrorist base, Yossi mused. In fact the cherries of Lebanon were famous in the Middle East. He was Point, as is the custom in the Israeli Army. Tradition dictated that the order to charge was not "CHARGE" as in other armies but FOLLOW ME. This was one of the strengths of this army because personal example was the rule. It was also the weakness of the army because the junior officer cadre was decimated in a real shooting war, up to thirty percent of the casualties in the Yom Kippur war were junior officers. As they neared the houses at the top of the hill, the dogs began barking furiously and they skirted the motley hamlet. Yossi did not consult his map at all. He knew his route by heart. During officer training it was not unusual to be required to learn a 20 mile route based on the topographic map and air-photos down to the last hill, and valley, water-hole and wadi. His night vision became more and more acute and soon he felt as if he was walking in bright moon-light. It is remarkable how much ambient light is present at night.

Light was beginning to show up in the east, which made the immediate countryside darker by comparison. Yossi led the Tavas via a circuitous route to the main road, which was really a narrow ribbon of asphalt winding through the hills, following the natural terrain, as much as the old donkey route did before it was given that thin coat of asphalt. He figured that this particular spot was a great place to ambush the incoming transports, and that was his function, to prevent such road-side explosive ambushes. The Opposition had a tactic where they would fill a jerry-can with gasoline, attach a TNT block and imbed a primer explosive into the block. Then they would swaddle the whole thing in burlap with construction nails and hide it road-side where the road was cut into the hill so that the overhang would deflect the blast to the vehicle being ambushed. Then they stretched an electric cord twenty or thirty meters away and above the level of the road, up sun if possible. The initiation point was really a car battery hidden behind a large boulder, where the Fatah, or Amal, or Islamic Jihad, or any of the other splinter groups would place a 17-18 year old with a promise to be a Shahid (martyr) if he happened to die, to initiate the blast. In six Tavasim so far Joe did not find the expected ambush and he dearly hoped that he would not find one for the rest of his tour of duty. The Tavas spread its tail quietly and the men started moving in a wide fan, scouring the terrain.

 Right where it was expected, the middle man in the 6 person contingent stubbed his toe against the truck battery. He stifled his curse and instead crouched.  Then they all crouched. Yossi went down on his hands and knees and scooted between the boulders to Ami who had found the Point.

This was a big battery. His hands traced the wires that were hidden in the underbrush and suddenly he turned cold, the sweat that was building in his sodden shirt turning to ice in the dawn cold wind. This meant a firefight, this meant that his crew may be hit and someone may be wounded or die. On the other hand, doing nothing may spell death to the transports bringing food and water and troops.

He quietly told the others to get into an ambush configuration and followed the wires to the road below. It was lucky they ran into the battery because these wires were well hidden. The charge itself was concealed behind a roadside bush below an overhang. This was the proverbial death-trap. Yossi crawled back up the slope and joined his Tavas. They had the Galil bipod out - that would give them better stability for long bursts. The RPG-7 was loaded and ready. The heavy loads were off their backs and they were ready to assault. Yossi pressed the phone to his ear.

"Yonah 1 from Red Tavas do you read" he whispered.

"This is Yonah1, what’s up?"

"We found an Initiation Point on hill number 225, ambush is set, radio silence from now on."

"Roger that Red Tavas, giv'em Hell."

Joe knew that the whole section will now come alive, Company roused, Battalion alerted, Division notified. But tradition dictated that he was on the Ground, he was in charge, and additional forces would come in only if he called for them. Otherwise this was his show. All this has happened a hundred times before, mostly the would-be bombers would not show up and the Engineers would be called to dismantle the charge. Joe settled down to wait and see if his quarry would show up. The wind blew colder and he shivered. His thoughts wondered to his cozy apartment in Tel-Aviv, 100 yards away from the warm Mediterranean, medical books, magazines, papers strewn around, and the occasional girl trying her luck in taking Yossi away from Singlehood. Jewish mothers taught their daughters that they aught to marry a Doctor, and some girls were persistent.  The men all cocooned in their thoughts and remained alert because the light was coming on fast.

 

They were four men and they were heavily loaded. One carried an RPD  0.3 inch machine-gun, another, two boxes of ammunition, one had a Kalachnikov and a backpack full of, probably, grenades. The fourth who kept looking around was the leader. They all wore the  uniform  thick Islamic-mandated beard, black-and-white checkered Keffieh wrapped around  the  head and neck, and   multi-patch jungle  commando fatigues. They were young, devout, and they were going to kill lots of Israelis today. Their watchers on the border had called on the phone (The stoopid Israelis never destroyed the Nabatiyeh telephone exchange) to say  that a convoy was heading in the Nabatiyeh direction and no one had seen any patrols nearby. They had had their Blessings bestowed by the Kadi who promised them that if they are killed in battle then they would each become a Shahid and as such would go directly to Heaven filled with beautiful large-breasted women and food and drink no end. They were spiritually ready to fight and die if needed. Lieutenant Yossi watched  them  in between a boulder and a bush and agonized  how to spread his fire-power best and avoid casualties. He felt the crushing burden of responsibility towards his boys' mothers, wives, girlfriends, to bring them back safely. The anticipation built up inexorably and he waited for the sun to come up behind him and blind his quarry, just like they had planned in setting up the ambush. This was what he had been trained for. His Tavas had practiced this scenario before and each knew his part. The first rays of the sun shone through the haze, the sounds of heavy diesel motors crept up from the distance, silencing the chirping of the early morning birds and it was time to strike.

 

Yossi snicked the safety off, touched his chin to check for the helmet strap and raised his Galil to eye level then raised himself silently above the boulder. His soldiers, students, shopkeepers, taxi-drivers, followed suit. He aimed at the Guerrilla leader who at that very moment swiveled around and looked him straight in the eye through the slit in his kaffieh. The warning cry  died in the short burst and the shells spewed from the Galil. The young man appeared to be picked up and slammed  back against the boulders behind. He did not fire a shot. The Gallils around him joined the fire and the  ricochets were whizzing into the stones and the earth and the people. The other three guerrillas were better hidden and disappeared from view immediately.  Suddenly a single Kalachnikov, a different cadence and tune opened up, wildly inaccurate. Yossi stopped his fire and screamed, "Kadosh, shnei rimmonim (two grenades)." Kadosh, the small sun-burnt Yemenite was ready. He twisted the ring, pulled the pin, released the boom and counted 21,22 and threw the grenade like a pitcher. They all hit the deck. The explosion threw dirt and as it did another grenade went  the same way. Joe raised his head slowly and a burst of fire exploded just to his right. There was no alternative but to assault. Kadosh and Jonathan both had grenades ready and he signaled them to throw. Yossi changed his magazine, slapped it in, and cocked his weapon.

The four explosions were close together. The damage to the enemy unknown. His heart was in his mouth and the taste of fear was metallic. Yossi jumped to his feet suddenly weightless. His boots were winged. He screamed "AHARAI (follow me)" and started running, his Gallil coming up to his shoulder and his finger pumping the trigger for the short bursts, three-four at a time. The black and white Kaffieh was just ahead and the rest of the body was  shielded. The sun's rays highlighted everything, the grey basaltic boulders, the eye-slit in the Keffieh, the Kalachnikov barrel jumping up and the fireflash issuing from it. The range shortened impossibly slowly, then the head blew apart and the brains spattered, and the Kalachnikov barrel pointed skywards. The machine gun was atop the boulder and a lone hardy man was trying to rotate it towards the storming troops. The Tavas was now fully open, feathers spread, spewing fire and they assaulted onto the machine gun emplacement. And then it was over, the Tavas overran the position and the man was draped over the gun, blood slowly pumping from a big hole in the neck. Yossi looked right and left but there was no one standing or hiding  and his troops were all safe. He started breathing again and realized that he had stopped breathing right after the FOLLOW ME scream.

 Suddenly the road below was alive with Jeeps and command-cars and soldiers who converged on the small hair-pin turn. The Thwap-thwap of the helicopter came over the ridge. Yossi felt like he weighed a hundred tons and his helmet was a dead weight, and his knees nearly buckled under. He turned the safety on and called his troops together. They all looked beat, loosened their helmets off, and observed their handi-work. Four men, creatures in the form of the Lord, were reduced to insignificant bundles of flesh, wrapped in bloody garments. Lieutenant General Matti Cohen, in green fatigues, jumped out of the leading Jeep and stormed up the hill. Behind him, the Engineering bomb-squad approached the explosive device carefully. Matti came up and demanded "any casualties?”

"None sir" said Yossi, finally beginning to grasp the achievement, this group of guerrillas had been the terror of the transports for months. He was awash in relief. 

"So what's this?" said Matti and pointed at Yossi's own sleeve. It was sodden with blood and suddenly Yossi felt the sting  and pain spreading from his upper arm.

"Oh it's probably a scratch" he replied lightly, "Jonathan will take care of it on the spot."

Jonathan, who had emigrated to Israel from South Africa, went back for his medic bag which he had discarded before the battle, and produced the scissors. Yossi sat back on a boulder and looked semi detached as the sleeve was cut and the gash exposed. It was really beginning to hurt now.

"The bullet went through, it needs to be stitched" Jonathan told him breathlessly.

"OK, put a bandage on it for right now, don’t exaggerate" Yossi told him off testily.

 

The hillside was starting to look like a football field after the win of the home team except that everyone was in olive-green. The helicopter landed nearby and now it was another senior officer who lumbered up the hill, surrounded by a veritable army of senior officers, radio bearers, intelligence etc.. The local   villagers came out and watched the Army people milling about and two  lines of cars, donkey-carts and lorries formed behind the road-block placed in both directions. His wound dressed, Yossi described the short battle, was cross questioned frequently until he had the whole picture. Other soldiers collected the armamentarium of the dead guerrillas and others picked through their pockets to look for identification and organizational affiliation. They were Islamic Jihad, and they carried orders from  Fat'hi Shkaki, the military chief of the Jihad. Yossi left that part to the experts, it was time to extricate his troops from the Victors Hoopla and come down to earth. Major Levy, the grizzled veteran  company commander,  gave him his nod. Anyway, he felt a little disgusted with the whole bone-picking-after the fact deal.

"All right you couch-potatoes, breakfast is over and it's time to continue Tavas, we are scheduled till  eleven AM and its only eight O’clock." Kadosh and Eitan looked at him with dismay and started protesting. Yossi steadied his gaze on them and the protest died down. 

"Line up for Tavas" they lined up along the road, each checked their magazines, the medical bag, water and grenades. Yossi checked each weapon for safety on, and then he strode down the road. His Gallil soon settled into the usual position, horizontal across the belly, pointing left, right hand resting lightly on the handle, metal stock under the arm, and the left on the barrel, both elbows at 90 degrees. His pace quickened and soon the characteristic swinging gait, butt pumping and arms on the weapon, reestablished itself. This was the seven kilometers per hour gait that ate up the distances while the mind flew to other regions. Tavas spread out behind him, emulating the gait and pace of the leader, heads high, scanning the houses that sprouted on either side of the road. Yossi looked back and his chest expanded at the sight of the troops. The job was a stinking job, but the men were 100 percent, and then some. He was proud to be at their head. Now the Tavas was showing the Flag. This village knew what had gone on only a mile out of town and they knew that these guys were not to be messed with. As they walked though the center of the village Yossi could feel the resentment, and the hate emanating from half-opened windows, the dark staircases, and the veiled eyes of the hooded women. All this was a folly and it had to stop - but not today.

 

The last shop in town was a coffee shop and the old men were already sitting at the low copper tables drinking thick black coffee from tiny porcelain cups. Yossi nodded in a friendly manner and flexed his shoulder which now sported a cut-off sleeve and a thick blood-stained bandage. He turned off the road and climbed the hill behind the last houses towards the trees half way up the slope.  It was time for late breakfast.

Even in repose they were not relaxed. They had their Gallils propped across their knees, and pulled out the water canteens. Kadosh fished for some sandwiches from the Grenade ruck-sack. Sam opened a spare magazine pouch and pulled a folded Iraqui Pitah and dug into it with gusto. 

 

Yossi sat on a terrace-stone a few meters above and surveyed the countryside from his vantage point. His water-bottle actually contained  cold coffee and he relished the sweetness that flooded his mouth. The sun climbed higher and it was a wonderful day to be alive. The extra magazine pouch yielded a chocolate wafer which appeared pulverized, probably due to the early morning antics. He opened the wrapper and gobbled up the wafer dust that spilled out. The breeze was soft, and the cherry trees produced a sweet shadow and everything appeared etched in sharp relief. He saw a young girl on one of the flat roofs,  hanging some clothes on a line, and pulled the eight power binoculars. She came into view, a sinuous figure, her hair uncovered, falling in  long wavy black stresses down her back. The hair shone in the sun and he was captivated. Yossi thought of calling the troops to the sight and then felt almost jealous . She was his, if only for a second, across three hundred meters of line of sight. The girl turned and looked right at him, although there was no way she could see him in the shadow. She smiled and talked to someone and then disappeared into the house. Yossi put the binoculars down and suddenly tensed.

The back door of the building which he knew to be the coffee house, the same building on which roof the girl had done her magic, opened, and a man came out. Yossi immediately scanned him with the binoculars  and saw a tall man, dressed in a long white Abaya and the Keffieh, checquered in black and white coiled on his head, leaving his face open for inspection. It was a handsome middle-aged face with a handle-bar moustache. He had a grey blazer on and carried a flat copper tray perfectly balanced. The tray returned a blaze of sun light, and there were 7 cups and a carafe of polished copper with a thin spout and a long round handle. The man started ascending the terraces and approached the troops. Yossi pursed his lips and uttered a short whistle. The soldiers looked up from their food, then grabbed their guns  and pointed them towards the lonely figure. The young girl appeared on the roof again and cried something. The man ignored the cry and pushed on up the hill. The soldiers spread out in a semi circle.

"What's going on?" Eitan asked Joe who maintained his outward calm.

"Don’t know, maybe he wants to offer us coffee."

"Fat chance" Eitan guffawed and was joined by the rest of the Tavas  “next he will offer us his daughter, ha-ha." Joe crinkled his mouth but his eyes did not smile, and the slits became  narrower. He left his Gallil where it was, a stick resting on a stone. The man came up and passed Jonathan who followed him with his gun barrel, and, short of breath, came up to Yossi. Yoseph Bergman steadied his gaze through those dangerous narrow eyes on the guile-less face.

The man did not speak at all. His deep-brown left hand supported the burnished beaten copper plate and his right held the carafe. He poured a small measure into  each of the small white earless cups, thick black hot brew which wafted vapour in the cool air under the cherry trees. The smell of fresh brewed coffee was intoxicating. He looked at Yossi and Yossi gazed right back at him. The man placed the carafe in the middle of the plate and took one cup . He sipped the coffee daintily and looked at Yossi again. Yossi smiled hugely and took a cup. The coffee was strong, sweet, and delicious. 

"Come on  guys, be courteous, take some coffee" Yossi said loudly. One by one, initially with suspicion and then with relish, the soldiers lowered their weapons and came up to the aromatic brew.

 

"Assiez avec nous, Monsieur s'il vous plait" Yossi's french was high-school stilted but in Lebanon the French influence had been very strong and it was likely that an educated local would understand.

"What is your name?" Yossi continued.

"Je suis Ahmad Abu Rabi'a and I own the Cafe that you go by every day." Ahmad's voice was quiet, mellow, well enunciated French with an Arabic accent.

"Et moi je m'appelle Yoseph Bergman, Merci Bien pour le Cafe” continued Yossi "but why?  This has never happened to anybody in this sector."

Ahmad paused and looked down to the village spread  along the narrow road and haphazardly over the hillside.

"Because your group here is different, you never harass anybody like some other patrols, you leave us alone as long as we leave you alone, and you don’t act like you own the place. I thought some common courtesy would be a nice change especially since you are sitting in my orchard, and doing no harm, that makes you my guests." Yossi quickly translated and they shifted a little uncomfortably. Suddenly each of them thought of how  it would feel if a strange armed person would start walking around their back yard.

"On the other hand" continued Ahmad "I am not sorry you gave the Palestinian Jihad some of their own medicine. Do you have any idea how these people harassed us before you came? They made the women wear Nikabs, they beat up on enfants who did not go to the mosque on Friday, they evicted families from their homes to establish bases, we would gladly be rid of them and the Israeli army, but Lebanon is too weak  to resist occupation by some foreign force" he added bitterly.  "If it’s not the Palestinians, it's the Iranians or Syrians." Yossi nodded with understanding while sipping his coffee and translated for the troops. It was quite wonder-ful to see how their expressions slowly morphed from suspicion and a little xenophobic fear, to understanding and empathy.

"Monsieur" said Yossi "we have no wish whatsoever to be here and if I am not mistaken no one wants to be here unless as tourists. It’s the Government which is making a huge mistake, that is sending us here, and we try to be as humane as we can while here. On the other hand I can tell you monsieur that life in Kiryat Shemona and Nahariah just south of the border was terrible as long as the Fatah was doing the Katyusha work every day, and that’s why we were sent" Ahmad listened and sighed.

"Le problem est, monsieur le Capitain, That we are all little people who do not have much influence over the Government, what can you and I do?”

Yossi  replied very seriously "first we can do something by being Humans while we are here and Primum Non Nocere as I was taught in Medical School (first, do no harm). Secondly, the citizens of Israel are not going to tolerate this folly for much longer. I expect a withdrawal within a year, see if I am wrong.”

A high pitched yell broke through the air, and Ahmad shifted his attention to the roof where his daughter was gesticulating.

"I must leave" he said quickly  "don’t stay too long, some-one may see." Ahmad collected his porcelain cups, each rimmed with coffee granules and quickly strode down the hill, around the terraces. They all followed him, a solitary figure disappearing down the slope and the spell of friendly conversation broke. The Tavas hefted their loads and rifles and groaning they resumed their trek up hill.

They had just crested the hill and started down the other side when the sound of 3 rapid-fire gunshots erupted. Yossi whirled and then his face contorted with rage and he started running wildly back the way he had come. The Tavas wheeled around and followed their suddenly mad leader. Yossi was racing down the hill like a leopard charging toward his prey, around the trees, over the boulders, over the terraces. It seemed impossible that he would not slip, or stumble and fall, but he did not. The Tavas could not keep up and Jonathan screamed at Yossi to slow down but he did not. He reached the wall separating the house from the orchard and leaped over it with a mighty bound. He soon disappeared around the house. Silence. Then the shriek of a young woman pierced the air and went on and on with whoops to take more air and shriek some more. The Tavas rounded the corner at a dead run and stopped in their tracks.

Ahmad was lying in the middle of the narrow street, obviously shot at close range, and his daughter was on her knees shrieking her head off. Yossi was at his side feeling for the pulse at the neck and shaking his head, his face a mask of rage and sorrow. "Spread out" he yelled at his immobile troops  "someone shot him and they may still be around. Eitan, get  Company on the radio."

"Yonah1 from Tavas Red."

"Reading you 5 Tavas Red. over."

Yossi grabbed the mike "we are on the west end of complex 'Yaarit' " he referred to the names given to the village on the IDF code map designated  SECRET, "we have a  man shot here, send ambulance and reinforcements."

"Who is hurt Tavas Red."

Yossi exploded "What does it matter who is hurt!! send it right away, over."

"OK, OK keep your cool, I'll call KodKod right now, This is Yonah1 over and out" squeaked the speaker.

"Tavas Red, this is KodKod , who is down?"  That was  Major Yacov Levy, the Company commander.

Yossi was already busy tearing off Ahmad's clothing to reveal the three entry wounds, one to the chest, one to the belly and one in the shoulder. They were inaccurate even from zero range. He decided that he must move Ahmad away from the middle of the street where any sniper could pick them off, so he and Jonathan quickly scooped the wounded man and dragged him to the shade of the deserted Café. Jonathan  opened his medical bag, and spread out the IV fluid bag and started  looking for an IV site. Joe motioned to Ami and Kadosh and   Sam to watch for  hostiles and felt for the pulse again. It was steady but weak and thready. The girl stopped screaming and watched wide eyed the soldiers taking care of her father. The street was otherwise deserted, everybody else ran for cover as soon as the shots were fired, and Ahmad would have bled to death right 

there. Eitan answered the call.

"KodKod, this is Tavas Red, it's a local."

"Tavas Red, this is their business leave the place immediately."

Yossi took the mike. Jonathan  found an IV site in the  neck and stuck the Venflon into it. He removed the steel needle and slid in the plastic catheter. He secured it with tape and connected the Saline fluid to it. Yossi said "let it run" and Jonathan recalled that Yossi was a  medical student. Yossi  was more composed now and replied.

"Kodkod Yonah This is Tavas Red, he's a local contact and there may be other armed hostiles here. We must search the village NOW."

"Roger that Tavas Red, we are on our way, doctor from Battalion will join us."

Jonathan was dressing the belly wound and the chest wound. Yossi turned to the girl. As soon as he turned towards her she jumped up and screamed something in Arabic, short and hateful, and ran off down the street to disappear into one of the bare buildings. Yossi looked after her with a grim face and stopped Ami who moved to pursue her. "Let her go Ami, I guess she thinks we are responsible for her father's injury.”

 

The convoy of Jeeps and Command cars and a couple of APCs roared into view. The drab-grey ambulance with a Magen David painted in red came up and stopped by Yossi  and Jonathan. The medics jumped out and under the direction of Doctor Yigal placed the wounded man on the stretcher. He appeared to be stable, loss of blood but no foaming at the mouth. Soldiers were everywhere, running into the buildings and searching for firearms. This was a nasty business of breaking into people's homes and searching through their property, upturning beds, rolling over sick elderly, and going through closets to look for guns and grenades. Yossi became numb, this was too much for one day, he and his Tavas needed to be relieved.

"Busy morning, eh?" Yacov Levy slapped Yossi's  shoulder, right above where it still stung from the early morning assault. Yossi winced.

"Yeah, get us out of here OK?" he said.

"Hey, you earned it, You guys are gonna get the day off, I wouldn’t want you to use up all your luck in one day." Yacov gave Yossi his well-used  grin. "Go on the second command-car and keep your eyes skinned." Yossi nodded, Ahmad  was  in good hands and maybe the terrorist who tried to kill him solely because he had carried a civilized discourse with Israelis would still be caught. Not that it made any difference. For each one you got there were a thousand who walked around with a death-wish. This country drove you crazy, so pretty, yet so dangerous, full of people so different, some tolerant,  most hateful. Yossi wished he was not mired here with the rest of his generation.

The Tavas folded wings and tail and climbed aboard the open command-car, six hard seats set back-to-back, guns pointing out. One could not let one's guard down even for a second in this bloody country.

 

This had been the twilight of the Invasion. Yossi had no idea that one day he may need come back to this accursed place. And he was very wrong about the withdrawal. 15 years later the Israelis were still mired in Lebanon, fighting the same war, only the enemies had changed names. If it was not the Fatah, then it was the Hezzbolah, backed by the fundamentalist capital of the world, Iran. But it was all the same. Fanatic Islamic terrorists devoid of inhibitions versus a modern army hobbled by humanitarian principles.

 

 

The only beneficiaries of the Invasion were the migrating birds, the Eagles and the Herons and the Ducks, which, from times immemorial, migrate south in fall to their African winter grounds over Turkey and Lebanon and Israel.  When Fatah-land was abounding with guns, the birds were shot at and downed for their feathers or to relieve boredom. Once most of these guns were confiscated and the illegal ones kept under wraps the  yearly Golden Eagle count which was run by the SPNI in Israel, after long years of decline,  began to increase from 1982. The Human casualties continued to mount inexorably.