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SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
war had been going for more than two weeks by the time Avi Alazari boarded the decrepit armored personnel carrier that would take him up to Mount Hermon. A member of the elite Golani Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion, Alazari had spent the better part of October 1973 desperately attempting to block the advancing Syrian forces on the Golan Heights. The carnage was horrific. Alazari’s teammates fell like flies; by the end of the war, fully 10% of his
platoon would join the 3,000 IDF soldiers who gave up their lives for G-d and country. In what seemed like a never-ending effort, they battled overwhelming odds to push the four Syrian armored divisions out of Israeli territory. “We were in the northern front for the entire war,” recalled Alazari in an interview with TJH. “We participated in all of the battles to halt the Syrians, including a series of extremely harsh battles.” And yet, their heroic stand on the Golan Heights’
killing fields paled in importance to what they were about to embark on. It was time for Israel to take back Mount Hermon from the Syrians, and Elazri’s company was tapped to be the unit to do it.
Fifteen
days earlier, the handful of Golani soldiers tasked with guarding Israel’s top-secret military base on Mount Hermon was awakened by the sound of approaching
