Captain Bar Zonstein Fought with Outstanding Valor and Skill
Captain Bar Zonstein was posted at the small “Mars” outpost on the Gaza border, along with
the Golani auxiliary infantry force, Battalion 51. Around 6:30 the morning on Saturday
October 7, his commander informed him that there was an enemy raid near Kibbutz Nirim,
and he set out to the area with his tank and crew. This was the last time he heard from his
commander, and from that point on, he was left to act independently, drawing information
on the situation in the field from intermittent reports. He advanced with his tank alone,
through the crop fields, and encountered a three-man terrorist squad, eliminating them with
the tank machine gun. Further on, he encountered two terrorist squads, shote several and
ran the others over. He then receives reports of the battle at the Kisufim outpost, makes his
way there, and encounters two terrorist squads with anti-tank weapons, both of which he
eliminates.
He receives a report from one of his company’s tanks, which was protecting the kibbutzim of
Nirim, Nir Oz and Magen, that the tank was hit and surrounded by terrorists. The soldiers
inside that tank were wounded and the tank couldn’t rotate its turret. He liaised with the
damaged tank and ordered it to follow him. On the way he identifies the tank of one of his
platoon commanders, burnt. He identifies two terrorist pickup trucks full of bodies speeding
towards Gaza. He fires at them twice and gets hit by two anti-tank grenades fired at him,
hitting and damaging his solar tank. His tank began leaking solar and hundreds of terrorists
surrounded it. He began shooting them with the machine gun and running them over with
the tank.
Both tanks – one with wounded soldiers and a disabled turret, and the other with leaking
solar tanks – made their way to kibbutz Magen where they encountered and eliminated a
four-men terrorist squad. Near Kibbutz Reim they decide to exit the defunct tank and return
to the Mars outpost, to collect an additional tank. Captain Zonstein got a ride with one of his
soldiers in the trunk of a Border Police car and they got off at the Kisufim intersection, where
they made their way through terrorist infested terrain to the outpost, fighting terrorists the
entire way. They eventually commandeered the tank and used it to continue fighting
terrorists until Monday. Captain Zonstein and his soldiers managed to kill approximately 70-
90 terrorist within two and a half days of fighting.