Salman Ghadban, an electrical inspector in the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade, was awakened on the morning of Saturday, October 7, 2023, by the siren at his base in the Nahal Oz area. A short while later, terrorists penetrated into the post.
Ghadban acted with determination and speed. He assembled all the female soldiers serving at the base into a protected area. Then he noticed a direct hit on a tank that had come to protect the post, and he prevented the tank driver’s body from being abducted. Ghadban ran to the damaged tank, took the dead soldier’s weapon, and joined an officer and a fighter who were protecting the female soldiers.
For many hours, until 4:30 pm, the small force — with little ammunition and no food — fought the terrorists, whose equipment included, among other weaponry, fragmentation grenades which they threw at the soldiers. One grenade hit Ghadban but did not explode. After an additional IDF force arrived at 4:30 pm, together they overpowered the terrorists and Ghadban volunteered to evacuate the wounded in an armored personnel carrier, under heavy fire. He took load after load of wounded soldiers from the battle site to an extraction point.
Even afterward, he stayed with the force. He explained the layout of the area and the border to them, and that night he lay in ambush to prevent further surprise attacks.
