In the morning of the Simchat Torah holiday, on October 7, 33-year-old Druze Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habka from Yanuh Jat in the Galilee received news of the multi-theater security breach in the Gaza border belt. Although Habka’s soldiers from the 53d battalion of the 188th Artillery division were posted for the duration of the holiday in the Hebron area, he dispatched troops from his unit to the south, to the Ze’elim area. The troops reinforced the troops already fighting in the field, adding a 6–tank unit to the force. His troops were deployed in the Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nachal Oz kibbutzim. An additional team of the 53 battalion was sent to the Erez checkpoint.
Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habka himself left his home in Yanuh Jat in the morning of the attack and joined the Paratrooper Corps force that was fighting in Kibbutz Be’eri along with two of his unit’s tanks. With joint forces they scoured house after house in the kibbutz, eliminating the terrorists. Habka’s decision to divide his tank force among several theaters proved to be not only courageous but also lifesaving, and his soldiers were material to the fighting in the kibbutzim and the Erez checkpoint.
At a later point in the fighting, Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habka joined the forces entering the Gaza Strip and was killed on the night of November 2 during the fighting in the north of the Strip. He is survived by a wife and a two-year-old son. May he rest in peace.
