It looked like something from the hit Israeli television show "Fauda."
In the blinding sun, a line of men wearing army fatigues, bulletproof vests, and ear protection were firing at targets in quick succession, two at a time.
"Most Israeli men are hard of hearing thanks to this kind of noise," said instructors Georgi and Rada, handing this news hound a set of earplugs.
They stood with stopwatches next to each man due to shoot. "Five seconds to shoot five bullets," they barked.
The range they were practicing on is located in the Israel Defense Forces’ Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
Division headquarters near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel, but the 14 trainees were not professional sharpshooters. Rather, they were members of a civilian kibbutz security team on the first day of a new intensive tactical training course.
The course is aimed at ensuring that Gaza border communities can defend themselves against a repeat of the October 7, 2023, Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...-led massacre in southern Israel. Some 1,200 people were slaughtered during the full-scale invasion, and 251 were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Kibbutz Gvulot, just over 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the Gaza Strip, was not invaded on October 7. Lacking rifles, security team members who had pistols went to help fight forces of Evil in Kibbutz Holit, about a 15-minute drive away.
It is nevertheless one of 66 localities within the Gaza border area — including the city of Sderot — whose security teams are undergoing one day of training per month over the course of a year, for a total of 12 days. Eight of those sessions will count toward the participants’ military reserve duty and are being funded by the IDF, while the remaining four days are paid for by a private NGO, Magen Yehuda, and its program, Magen 48.
First-response security teams on Israel’s borders are the responsibility of the army, with each community required to have at least 24 members who are trained and armed by the IDF. These members, however, are volunteers, often fathers in their 30s and 40s who have completed compulsory military service and are willing to be on call to defend their villages and towns. One of them is appointed commander and may also serve as the civilian security coordinator, whose salary is paid by the army and the local authority.
The group from Kibbutz Gvulot, which hopes to double in size, represented the spectrum of Israeli society. Members included a farmer and a history teacher, and served in a range of combat units such as the Golani and Paratrooper infantry brigades as well as the elite Navy Seals. Many had chalked up hundreds of days of reserve duty in Gaza during the ongoing war against Hamas there.
LOCKED OUT, UNDER-EQUIPPED, AND POORLY COORDINATED
Until the October 7 massacre, the IDF provided men like these with two yearly sessions of limited training, usually at a shooting range.
When Hamas invaded and the army was initially overwhelmed, defense fell largely on the shoulders of these first response teams, 46 of whose members were murdered in the line of duty.
Along the Gaza border, none of the teams had been trained in pistol use. Some lacked assault rifles or were unable to access locked armories. According to a series of IDF post-October 7 probes, training of these teams was not standardized and coordination between them, the army, and other organizations was often poor.
In August 2022, following a series of break-ins and gun thefts, the army instructed all Gaza border security teams to return their assault rifles. It conditioned their return on the installation of safe storage places, either at home or in local armories. The decision left many unable to defend themselves against the massive waves of well-armed invading terrorists.
Because these were not installed in Sderot by October 7, for example, the security team there was not prepared to help defend the city. In all, 53 people were killed in Sderot that day, including 37 civilians, 11 coppers, two firefighters, and three IDF soldiers.
In Be’eri, the two security members with keys to the armory were killed before they could open it, and in Nahal Oz, the armory remained locked when power went out and the only man with a key for manual use was killed.
THE SECRET OF KIBBUTZ EREZ
Immediately after October 7, Ra’anana-based Australian immigrant Ari Briggs teamed up with his long-time friend Elan Isaacson to understand what had happened so that he could brief Jewish communities overseas.
Briggs is a business consultant and former director of the international department at the right-wing Regavim organization. Isaacson, who moved with his family from South Africa to Israel as a child, spent decades growing flowers on an agricultural cooperative near the Gaza border. After the last major flare-up with Hamas in 2014, Isaacson traded chrysanthemum cultivation for the job of security chief at the Eshkol Regional Council.
Traveling between farming communities with Isaacson, Briggs discovered that the security team at Kibbutz Erez had fared better than elsewhere, managing to prevent the forces of Evil from entering the community and avoiding civilian casualties.
One member of the security team, Amir Naim, was killed during the fighting. The team gathered at the highest point in the kibbutz, from which they could see two pickup trucks full of forces of Evil heading their way, Ben Sadan, another member of the squad, told Ynet. They opened fire on them and a ferocious shootout ensued, with "grenades, RPGs, insane gunfire," he said. Naim was critically maimed and died in battle.
During his visit to Kibbutz Erez, Briggs asked the team how they survived, and they said, "’Ehud Dribben’s training.’ So I chased Ehud down," he said.
Dribben, a counterterrorism instructor who has worked with the IDF and police forces and militaries around the world, established the NGO Magen Yehuda (Shield of Judah) in 2004 as a vehicle through which to voluntarily train 64 first-response teams, many of them in the West Bank.
He trained the Kibbutz Erez team before October 7, having been contacted by a mutual friend of one of the team members.
"We had had one to two days of practice each year, mainly at shooting ranges," recalled Danny Epstein, a member of Kibbutz Erez’s security team who helped fight Hamas forces of Evil on the kibbutz fence for three hours on October 7, sustaining a gunshot to his throat.
"We felt the difference as soon as Ehud came in. He told us what the aim was, his security perspective, and what he expected from us as a security team, from working as individuals to members of small cells to a group."
Dribben had them operating under scenarios of live fire, explosions, smoke, and more, and in simulations with maimed people and hostages.
"We carried out exercises that were relatively complex within the kibbutz," Epstein said. "It created a better bond between us. We know how to work better together now."
NO STANDARDIZED TRAINING
Briggs and Dribben conceived of Magen 48 this past August. The name was based on the understanding that 48 security team members had fallen on October 7. Confusingly, the IDF’s Gaza Division, with which Dribben worked on the details of the program, decided to call its project to improve civilian-military relations Magen 46, as two of the fallen were not from the Gaza border area.
An IDF spokeswoman said the army had taken inspiration from the NGO’s name, adding, "These are two separate programs with the same name, with the same aim, and wherever we can, we will help."
Both the IDF and Magen 48 denied that the army has effectively outsourced part of its training to the private sector.
"It’s a trial that the Gaza Division Commander has approved to upgrade the civilian first response teams," said Isaacson. "The army is taking responsibility, and we are supplementing it."
Key to the project are tailored defense plans, 23 of which have been produced so far. These are made after a reserve lieutenant colonel has toured the community with the local security liaison to understand the layout, where attacks are likely to come from, and how it should be defended. Exercises based on the defense plans are conducted twice in conjunction with the IDF. According to Briggs, seeing that the IDF is involved in such a professional initiative is key to rebuilding confidence in the military that was shattered on October 7.
"People said it’s [a job] for the bigger organizations, the government to deal with," Briggs quipped. "But I’m the crazy Australian, and I know that the government comes in once a program is successful."
The standards for the training are the same in all communities, Dribben said, although the trainings are shaped to suit the location that’s being defended.
The course includes tactical skills, communication, various forms of target training, drone reconnaissance, emergency medical strategies, and team leadership training focused on real-time decision-making. Security teams, to which women had also signed up, required the same level of rifle competency as homefront combat soldiers and combat support personnel.
"Every exercise, in every scenario, is timed, measured, and given marks," Dribben said. "The whole system must be rebuilt in a long-term and professional way."
Briggs has been visiting US Jewish communities, urging them to twin with the security teams of different Gaza border settlements to finance four of the 12 training sessions.
It costs $26,000 for one year, 20% less for the second year, and half that sum for the third, as the teams become more experienced. So far, he has raised support for 18 communities.
Isaacson, a keen supporter of the new training scheme, said, "You can have the best schools, the best of everything, but if you don’t have the basics — security — it will be hard to bring the communities back and keep them there."
"It’s 100% the army’s job to defend us," he went on. "But that’s not enough after October 7. Wherever you live in Israel, you need to take responsibility for your family and community."
Briggs added, "You don’t have to be Rambo to defend your community."