{"id":537654,"date":"2026-07-12T11:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/537654\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T11:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T11:32:13","slug":"terrorist-begged-dont-shoot-i-want-to-live-idf-colonel-urges-israel-to-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/537654\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Terrorist begged, \u201cDon\u2019t shoot, I want to live\u201d\u2019: IDF colonel urges Israel to remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 679th Reserve Armored Brigade, a storied formation whose history includes the desperate battles on the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, has added another chapter to its record as the first IDF brigade since the 2006 Second Lebanon War<\/a> to capture the strategic Silvester Ridge in southern Lebanon<\/a>.\"\u05d0\u05dc"\u05dd<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05dc"\u05dd<\/p>\n

Col. Itay Zaafrani <\/p>\n

(Photo: IDF)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brigade took full responsibility for Bint Jbeil, and we operate there every day to locate and uncover the enemy,\u201d Zaafrani told ynet and its parent newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The married father of two from Ashdod requested a third year in command so he could continue leading his troops in battle.<\/p>\n

Zaafrani said the brigade had faced several significant incidents in recent days. During searches in a densely built area last week, a terrorist opened fire at one of the officers. \u201cWe responded immediately with force, sealed off the entire area, brought in air support and used heavy tank fire, and eliminated the terrorist who fired,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The incident continued to trouble him, however, and he ordered the troops to search the area for another three days to verify the terrorist\u2019s death. The brigade brought in the Oketz canine unit to locate bodies beneath the rubble.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, the dog went down into the ruins,\u201d Zaafrani said. \u201cIt turned out there were two more terrorists hiding inside an underground shaft.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commander and deputy commander of the 8112th Battalion\u2019s support company entered the ruins and killed one of the terrorists. The second, a member of Hezbollah\u2019s elite Radwan Force, quickly surrendered.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe realized he had no chance,\u201d Zaafrani said. \u201cHe immediately shouted in English, \u2018Don\u2019t shoot,\u2019 and threw his weapon toward the company commander.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commander ordered the terrorist to retrieve the body of the military dog, which had been killed, before taking him into custody. Zaafrani said the detainee appeared to have been hiding for a long time and was unshaven, terrified and visibly shaken.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe kept saying, \u2018I want to live. I don\u2019t want to die,\u2019\u201d Zaafrani said. \u201cThey had been hiding there for weeks, eating very little and afraid to come out. They were waiting to hear that there was a ceasefire. But even after they heard there was one, they could still hear our forces and the constant searches, and they realized that the IDF was not leaving. Their motivation to fight is almost nonexistent. They mainly want to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u05de\u05e4\u05e7\u05d3<\/a>\"\u05de\u05e4\u05e7\u05d3<\/p>\n

Zaafrani described the fighting in southern Lebanon as a highly integrated campaign in which nearly every force operated as a self-contained \u201csmall army,\u201d combining reserve and regular battalions with engineering, artillery and intelligence-gathering units.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combination was an extraordinary force multiplier,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a great feeling to begin a battle already leading 10-0 because you have that kind of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rejected criticism that Israeli troops in southern Lebanon were being exposed without sufficient protection. In one incident, he said, the brigade\u2019s reconnaissance company identified a Hezbollah anti-tank squad, tracked it with drones and destroyed it with a fighter jet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the strike, I called my wife and excitedly told her, \u2018We just eliminated an anti-tank squad,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe told me, \u2018You don\u2019t understand. We are in Israel anxious all day, convinced you are sitting ducks up there.\u2019 Sometimes the feeling at home does not reflect the superiority we have on the ground. Inside the yellow line, I have complete freedom of action to destroy every enemy and every piece of infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zaafrani recently met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said he used the meeting to warn about the growing burden on Israel\u2019s reserve forces. Members of the 679th Brigade, he said, have served more than 500 reserve-duty days over the past three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him privately that the reservists are the insurance policy of the IDF and the State of Israel,\u201d Zaafrani said. \u201cReservists are paying a heavy price because of the manpower shortage, and we must create much more breathing room between deployments.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he avoided entering the political dispute over ultra-Orthodox military conscription and instead presented the issue as an immediate operational problem. \u201cI told him, \u2018Mr. Prime Minister, I am not entering the political debate over drafting the ultra-Orthodox. I am offering something practical. What is wearing down now is the patience of the reservists and the people around them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how Netanyahu responded, Zaafrani said: \u201cHe listened. I could see it mattered to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zaafrani said the IDF had pushed Hezbollah significantly farther from the Israeli border and created what he described as a largely empty security zone across southern Lebanon. He said Israeli forces had confiscated large quantities of weapons and damaged Hezbollah\u2019s strategic capabilities, while acknowledging that the organization still retained some ability to operate drones.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d0\u05dc"\u05dd<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05dc"\u05dd<\/p>\n

Col. Itay Zaafrani <\/p>\n

(Photo: IDF)<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the ceasefire, Hezbollah has begun refreshing its forces and supplies. We can see it,\u201d he said. \u201cBeyond the yellow line, the enemy keeps civilians in place because it wants to operate under their cover, but we identify most of that activity and collect precise intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zaafrani argued that evacuating civilians from the combat area had enabled the IDF to operate without Hezbollah using populated areas as cover. He said Israel should continue holding the commanding terrain it captured because it provides the best defensive position for communities in northern Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a price to that,\u201d he said. \u201cTo hold these areas over time, you need a large force and strong reserve brigades.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 679th Reserve Armored Brigade, a storied formation whose history includes the desperate battles on the Golan Heights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-537654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}