From the front line in northern Israel, Israeli Colonel speaks exclusively to SKAI and Stavros Ioannidis. In fact, he was one of the first soldiers to rush to the sites of the attacks in order to neutralize the Hamas gunmen.

Question: Colonel you were one of the first to fight Hamas in southern Israel, what did you face?

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: I arrived at the military base and for the first three hours we had very fierce fighting between my soldiers and officers and the Hamas terrorists who tried to infiltrate the base. They obviously wanted to kill us all. They failed because we were ready and before I even arrived, the soldiers and officers who were there had already killed some of them and managed to prevent the attack. And from the moment I arrived, we started raiding the places we thought they were hiding and managed to kill them all.

Question: We understand that it was a very hard fought battle

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: This battle started out of the blue for us because of the holiday and as it was very early in the morning and people were sleeping as it was a weekend and a holiday, but very quickly we managed to get on our feet and we were very determined to push them back, kill them, that’s all we also made sure that our bases are clear of terrorists. And that was after a few hours of fighting.

Question: Did you see atrocities against civilians?

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: We saw on the streets of Sderot and Ofakim, we saw cars on the streets with several civilians in the cars with bullets in their heads that apparently someone had killed them at close range. There were a lot of families in those cars but also on the streets, people just walking peacefully because it was a holiday and we’re Jewish, we have a synagogue, so some people were going there when they were killed. I saw dozens, dozens of civilians, innocent civilians who did nothing but live peacefully in their place, killed on the pavement, in settlements near the Gaza Strip.

Question: We understand that you are in combat readiness for a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, and given that this is a very densely populated area, how do you think the operation will turn out?

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: A ground attack is never an easy mission. It’s always very complicated, there are always parameters that we don’t know, but, we are determined to win, not to harm people who are not involved, the Armed Forces always warn those who are not involved that we have no intention of harming them, and I have a lot of faith and trust in the soldiers us, the ground forces, that their professionalism and values ​​will help us fulfill this mission quickly and successfully.

Question: Do you think a second front will emerge in northern Israel, against Hezbollah or another organization?

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: Now, as we speak, I am in northern Israel and we are declaring readiness. We have many units in the north and we are ready to face any kind of attack from Hezbollah or any other enemy that tries to do so.

Question: How is your morale? Israeli morale?

Colonel Elan Edry, Commanding Officer of the Research and Training Brigade: We feel that we are protecting our families, our friends, the civilian population, and we know that after we succeeded and stopped the attack and after we neutralized more than a thousand terrorists around the Gaza Strip and fought back, we are now ready to fight a very tough battle with Hamas and any enemy that will threaten Israel.