Lieutenant T. took charge of the Kisufim military command center full of wounded, under fire
Lieutenant T., commander of the surveillance unit in the Command Center at the IDF Kisufim
base, was in the commend room already at 5:30 am on October 7. Immediately with the
start of the rocket barrage, all the base surveillance soldiers reported to the command
center. One of them notice an ATV approaching the border fence. Lieutenant T. immediately
announced on the communications system “raid” – a procedure the soldiers are well familiar
with and trained in. By doing so she helped disperse some of the battle fog that existed at
the time. She tried to operate the overhead weapons’ systems on the fence, however, three
were already destroyed by Hamas terrorists, and a short while after she was able to operate
the remaining three – the terrorists disabled them as well.
The command room, which was a designated safety room, held at the time of the attack 22
female soldiers. Special forces were sent to cleans the base of the terrorist, and they waged
close quarters combat with them, at times at close range, and the command center began
taking in more and more wounded soldiers. Several of the surveillance soldiers began
tending to the wounded, while their comrades continued calmly to operate the command
center. The monitors in the room showed fighting in Kibbutz Kisufim as well, and the
surveillance soldiers alerted an attack helicopter, an attack drone and a tank, which
eliminated the terrorists in the area. At that point, the center’s water and electricity supply
had been cut out, and in it were some 60 people, most of them wounded. They remained
