The Hour Before a Strike Is Approved

This is the full scene behind the short passage quoted on our English homepage. It is one of the operational dilemmas described in Matir Asurim - the kind of hour-long, multi-person deliberation that doesn't fit into a single line of testimony, but that shaped how strikes near possible hostage locations were actually approved.

The narrator is Uri Meiri, a reserve intelligence officer at "Jessica," the operations base of the Hostages and Missing Persons Unit. A Shin Bet source has reported that a senior Hamas commander will arrive at a building thirty-two meters from "Bar" - a no-strike zone marking a suspected hostage location - in under two hours. The aircraft are already being armed.

"Quite a delegation," I said. My smile vanished when I saw the seriousness on their faces.

"What do we have in the 'Bar' no-strike zone? It is inside the Shati refugee camp," Bombach asked.

"We suspect N.S. is being held there, a soldier abducted from Black Arrow," Sivan said.

"The strike cell at headquarters called. A Shin Bet source reported that in one hour and forty minutes, Ahmed Shehadeh, commander of Hamas's Shati Battalion, will arrive for a meeting at battalion headquarters," the operations officer said. "He's coming to approve plans with his Nukhba men ahead of Division 162's entry into the area next week. The aircraft are being armed now and will be airborne in an hour. The building they want to hit is thirty-two meters from 'Bar,' and they are waiting for our approval."

Bombach and I looked at each other. He was a brave fighter with many years in the field, now a school principal in civilian life. We had worked together extensively, and I trusted him with my eyes closed. I also knew that Bombach had lost a close friend in Kfar Aza, murdered in his family's safe room together with his wife and two of their children.

"Call the Air Force representative," Bombach said. The representative said the risk to N.S. was extremely low and demonstrated several scenarios in a specialized software system.

For the next hour we analyzed, planned, measured, investigated and deliberated. Finally, the operations officer said the aircraft were ready to take off. A decision had to be made.

"Brother, I am stepping back to make sure my emotions don't affect my decision," Bombach told me quietly. I respected his professionalism.

"This is your decision, Meiri," he said. Like one of those dreams I had as a child, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly turned toward me.

I tried to concentrate and isolate every variable. Think, Uri, think. What do we actually have here? On the one hand, killing a battalion commander is a very good thing. It would significantly damage Hamas's command, control and fighting capacity in an area in which we were about to operate with boots on the ground. On the other hand, we had never approved a strike this close to a located hostage. On the third hand, the danger to N.S. was minimal, according to both the Air Force and the intelligence.

What else? What else? How could I reduce the risk even further? I thought for a few more seconds, then stood up.

"The strike is approved on the binding condition that the 'Snowflake' munition be used instead of 'Eskimo Ice,'" I announced, scrawling my signature on the target sheet with an unsteady hand.

My heart pounded like a Merkava tank. For the next few minutes I stared at the screen, unable to blink, pressing my fingers against the table until they turned white.

Finally, I saw a large mushroom of smoke rise from the building in Shati.

"Stay strong, Noam. We are here with you," I whispered through trembling lips.

From "Matir Asurim" (Redeemer of Captives) by Yair Miron

Bombach's recusal, the Air Force's risk modeling, the hour of deliberation, the switch to a smaller munition to protect a hostage who was never in the building being struck - none of it shows up as a statistic. It is the kind of process this book tries to put on the page: not a system that worked perfectly, but one in which people, not software, carried the weight of the decision.