“We tried to leave as few buildings intact as possible”: Russian-speaking IDF soldiers on their service in Gaza

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“Watch any action movie about the war on terror — the ruins always look the same”

Ilya, reservist, electromechanic for Namer armored personnel carriers, Givati Brigade

The war in Gaza is my first. I was discharged from contract service at the end of 2021. I’d served on contract for a year after completing my mandatory service in Givati.

On October 7, 2023, I was at home in Kiryat Motzkin. When I saw those images of violence, kidnappings, and killings, I immediately messaged my officer. By six in the evening, I had received a “Tzav 8” — an emergency call-up order requiring me to report to my unit.

As I drove south toward the base near Be’er Sheva, I saw Iron Dome interceptor missiles streaking into the sky. It was unsettling. In my twenty years of living in Israel, I had never seen anything like it: an unprecedented, brazen, monstrous invasion. It felt unreal, as if it couldn’t be happening, as if such barbarity were impossible.

I arrived at the military base with just one bag — only underwear and socks inside — and didn’t even have my military papers with me. My officer met me there, an incredible man who has spent about 400 days on reserve duty since October 7, maybe even more. A new brigade was formed from reservists, and we received everything as we went along.

There weren’t enough rifles for everyone, because 150% of the expected number showed up — the largest mobilization in Israel’s history, 550,000 people. This was despite the deep political crisis before the war and the protests against the judicial reform. Reservists had threatened not to report for duty, and even pilots — the military elite — said they would rather go to prison than attend training. But Israelis have a remarkable trait: unity in times of crisis. We Jews come together in the face of hardship.

Those who weren’t called up — mothers, grandmothers, children — brought food and basic supplies like towels, toothpaste, and other essentials. So it wasn’t a big deal that I’d only packed underwear in my bag.

I first entered Gaza in November 2023. We went in from the north — Beit Hanoun, Jabalia. We stayed there through November and December, and then the officers said we were moving toward Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, not far from Rafah.

I repair armored personnel carriers. We replace engines, batteries, generators, and tracks, and we carry out technical maintenance. We had to work both day and night. Some of us are electricians, others mechanics, but everyone did everything. That’s part of the spirit of the Israeli army — we’re all in it together. The fighters always helped us too, taking on tasks that didn’t require technical skills but needed strength and time. They’re trained to replace tracks and wheels and check the oil. They can do it themselves, but as professionals we try to be there and supervise.

I worked both at the training ground near Gaza and, when needed, went inside. Gaza itself… Watch any war movie about the fight against terror in Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan — it all looks the same. The ruins are indistinguishable. Our air force did a thorough job — everything is in pieces.

But that doesn’t mean there are no undamaged areas in the Strip. The destruction is where the army operated. In those areas, we tried to leave as few buildings intact as possible, because many of them were booby-trapped, used as tunnel exits, or served as sniper nests. A tunnel exit can be covered with tiles, stones, or concrete. It might be in a basement, a stairwell, or some room — in a place you’d least expect.

Since the Israeli army also needs buildings, some were left standing. They were used for storage, housing troops, or as command posts. But the scale of destruction is immense. It’s a dire situation for the residents. They have nowhere to return to. Rebuilding all of it will take years.

I didn’t take part in the fighting directly, but once I was replacing a hydraulic pump that secures the tracks — it’s a long job — and a battle was taking place just 100 to 150 meters away. I was in a protected area. In Gaza, the IDF fortifies positions with sand embankments instead of walls. Beyond the embankment is a no man’s land — everyone there is on their own.

I first saw civilians last year in Jabalia, in the northern part of the Strip. I saw a column of civilians being escorted by Israeli soldiers. Anyone suspicious was taken for questioning. The locals were in rags. They’re constantly being moved back and forth, carrying their belongings or pushing carts loaded with baskets. They haven’t had cars for a long time — at best, someone might have a donkey.

Some soldiers feel sympathy for the people of Gaza, others don’t. Personally, I feel indifferent. I don’t see much willingness on their part to resist Hamas or fight it themselves. I strongly suspect that if we were to leave Gaza now, everything would go back to October 6, 2023, and Hamas would be in power again.

“I won’t be able to look at this area the same way again”

Levi, reservist, artillery corps officer

Gaza is my first war as a combatant. I’m originally from Donetsk, so I’ve seen war before. I did my mandatory service in the Israeli army in relatively calm times. In officer courses we were prepared for various developments, but not for a war of this scale. In 2014 there was Operation Protective Edge, during which ground incursions took place in parts of Gaza. After that, fighting was mostly limited to airstrikes and artillery.

On October 7, everyone felt exposed and unprepared. We had been getting ready for war, but nobody expected events like these. It was assumed the main blow would come from Hezbollah, and that other Iran-backed proxies would join in — from Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Syria — overwhelming both the air-defense systems and the army itself. Attacks by pro-Iranian Iraqi militias, bombardments from Iran and Yemen, and even a Houthi landing attempt in Eilat were not ruled out.

Sinwar, planning the assault from Gaza, likely expected everyone else to join. Had a simultaneous multi-front attack occurred, the situation would have been far more dramatic than it is now. Even so, this remains the largest attack on Israel since the Yom Kippur War — and the biggest single massacre of Jews since World War II.

My artillery division moved toward the Gaza Strip only on October 9. Command deployed rather slowly, and there was no centralized control. Now I understand we should all have gone in immediately — formed up, swept the terrain, and engaged the terrorists. It didn’t matter who was artillery and who was infantry — everyone had at least basic small-arms training.

Reports that have come out about individual episodes from October 7 show that some Israeli commanders, soldiers, and units demonstrated heroism, but the army as a whole was unprepared for what happened. There still hasn’t been a full investigation into what occurred at the highest military and political levels.

October 7 is a day that will stay with me forever — in my subconscious, in my memory, in my DNA. It’s what I will pass on to my children and grandchildren. I still live it. I woke up to an air-raid siren at 8:30 a.m. It was the first air alarm near Jerusalem, two hours after the Hamas attack. By 10 a.m., we were already ordered to be ready to move to the base within half an hour. I packed two rucksacks, put on my uniform, and left. It was Saturday. Roads are normally empty on Shabbat, and that day they were especially so. Rockets were flying overhead. The full scale of what had happened was still unknown, but there was already a sense that something irreversible had occurred.

Back then I was still a very young commander who had just finished the reserve officers’ course and didn’t even know half of his platoon. On October 7 and 8 we were preparing — cleaning weapons, loading everything onto the armored personnel carriers. We did checks, refueled, and studied the operational plans.

We departed on the morning of October 9. We were supposed to travel on transporters — those huge trucks for carrying equipment; they can go at speeds of 80–90 kilometers per hour. In Israel, the distances are such that wherever you leave from, you’ll be there in a few hours.

There weren’t enough transporters for the whole division because they pulled literally all the equipment, even the stuff they don’t normally take to exercises. Ten to twelve vehicles were left without transporters, including two of my four armored personnel carriers.

As a young officer, I was assigned the remaining vehicles. The armored personnel carriers were quite old, and at first I didn’t even have an onboard computer. I had to rely on paper maps and Google Maps. We drove along dirt roads to avoid blocking the main highways and damaging the asphalt.

Only in movies do tanks race across open fields at 70 kilometers per hour while firing. Wheeled APCs can move fast, but tracked ones — as well as self-propelled artillery — usually go 10, 15, maybe 20 kilometers per hour. Considering the turns, hills, and descents, the trip to Gaza took about twelve hours instead of one and a half.

At the exit from our base, there was a mound of gravel piled up, and I suddenly thought of Vereshchagin’s painting The Apotheosis of War. I couldn’t shake that image for a long time — we were all deeply frightened. But as officers, we had no moral right to show fear. We had to set an example and keep the soldiers’ spirits up.

Ambulances and ZAKA vehicles were speeding toward Gaza, and in the north of Israel, even though it was already the third day of the war, long lines of cars were heading out — people were leaving. We drove along a country road where everyone could see us. People waved, shouted, honked their horns. Some threw us packs of chips — it was incredibly encouraging.

I rode in the lead APC, wearing a tank headset, commanding the column. I guided the driver. Visibility from inside is poor. The glass is usually scratched, so I had to lean out with the upper half of my body exposed. And then I saw a white Toyota pickup speeding toward us. That model was already infamous after the October 7 attack — the same kind used by terrorists in Africa. Even now, when I see those vehicles, I still get chills.

The white Toyota was speeding toward us. The windows were tinted, and it wasn’t clear who was inside. I was sitting behind a Browning .05-caliber machine gun — the kind of round that’s meant not for infantry, but for light armored vehicles. If it hits a person, there’s almost nothing left. As we drew level with them, it turned out there were two of our soldiers inside.

Once we had to stop because the equipment overheated. Along the way, one of the APCs broke down. We set up a tent and left a few soldiers to guard it. There was a small village nearby. At first, people looked at us warily. Then, once they realized who we were, they brought food, sang for us — in short, they showed support. Overhead, rockets were flying toward Tel Aviv.

By evening we reached the areas near the Gaza border. The terrain became more complicated: residential neighborhoods on the right, an industrial zone on the left. A rocket had clearly struck the industrial area not long before — several fire trucks were putting out the flames. We drove through Sderot. By then, the terrorists had already been pushed out.

Then we saw a scene I’ll never forget. We approached the Nir Am junction, where a row of cars stood abandoned. We stopped to check the maps. Another officer and I got out wearing helmets, flak jackets, rifles slung over our shoulders. We saw that every car, dozens of them, was riddled with bullet holes. The windows were shattered, belongings scattered on the ground, traces of blood everywhere. On one of the windshields was the print of a bloody hand. A child’s car seat lay in the bushes. Later we learned that the bodies had been removed just a few hours before we arrived.

At that junction we missed a terrorists’ pickup, with RPGs and rifles, by about half an hour. If we had run into them, we would have shredded them — no question — but of course it was far better that a drone strike took them out, without putting our fighters’ lives at risk.

We didn’t know exactly where to go. The initial order was to head toward Gaza. Then we were told to move to a position near Kibbutz Be’eri. We still didn’t know that dozens of people there — elderly, children — had been killed or taken.

My then-girlfriend (now ex) had her birthday on October 9. She sent me tearful little circles, while I was trying to calm soldiers who had their fingers on triggers and were ready to shoot at anything that moved.

As we approached Gaza we drove in complete darkness, with headlights and night-vision turned off. We didn’t know how many terrorists were where, or from which direction we might be fired on. From the Gaza side we saw very, very bright flashes of light — that was our air force bombing.

As artillerymen, we entered Gaza several times to shoot in direct fire mode. Nobody ever thought that would be necessary: in training it was presented as something unusual — when artillery fires not on a ballistic trajectory, but directly, like a tank. Our tank guns are 120 millimeters; self-propelled guns are 155. The shell is about 10 kilograms heavier, so the salvo is much more powerful.

We used direct fire when there was information that a particular building was being used as terrorist infrastructure. Or to clear a route for an armored brigade when a maneuver was planned. But for most of the time we were positioned on the Gaza border and firing from there. The first few weeks felt like a full-scale war, while Hamas fighters remained in the Otef Aza area.

My platoon patrolled the area. Nearby were greenhouses. During one patrol we found an ID card that later turned out to belong to someone from the Nova festival, and a prayer rug that, judging by everything, had been left by one of the terrorists. Your imagination fills with ideas of how those items ended up next to each other.

Not far away was a bus stop where a bus carrying Russian-speaking pensioners, who had been traveling to the Dead Sea on the morning of October 7, broke down. There’s a last photograph — it shows them watching rockets fly across the sky. A Hamas pickup drove past, and they were all shot.

My ex and I used to go to a festival there called Red South. It takes place when anemones begin to bloom in the desert. It’s very beautiful and romantic. The festival has been renamed now because the old name sounds wrong. I won’t be able to look at this whole area the same way ever again. You pass an intersection, and twenty people were killed here. You pull into a kibbutz, and a family was kidnapped from that house.

Our positions were shelled every day. Rockets fell in front of us and behind us. Hamas knew where forces were deployed, but their priority remained firing on Israeli civilian towns.

Once an intercept happened right above us. Shrapnel rained down on my APCs. I barely managed to pull one of the soldiers who had been sitting on the roof back in through the hatch. The APC’s ramp opens at the rear, and we didn’t have time to close it. We sat inside and listened to the tapping: first small fragments, then bigger ones, then huge pieces. That kind of stuff at speed can easily take off half a head. Thank God our opponents are very weak in counter‑battery warfare. Essentially, they don’t have artillery — they mostly fire rockets.

For the first month we were in field-deployment mode. Even when we could have slept in tents, I slept in the APC. The seats fold up and the space is divided by a bench. I would lie down on the metal floor and sleep. For the first week I slept in my body armor. On the third night, I took my boots off for the first time.

I took a shower for the first time on October 17. They drove us to a base, and I stood under the water and watched black streams of grime and dust run off me. I was used to wearing a small beard, but dirt had worked into it so badly that I had to shave it off.

After a while an excavator arrived and dug U‑shaped trenches facing Gaza. We drove the APCs into them so we could get out quickly. They put up army tents.

When a rocket is fired from Gaza toward the border there’s basically no flight time: it arrives and the siren sounds at the same moment. So I told the soldiers, “If you hear the siren — don’t get up; you won’t have time to hide.” Later they built concrete fortifications for us.

From Be’eri we moved to Kibbutz Kfar Aza. From there we fired until January 1, and that was the first time we were demobilized. After that I was called up two more times — each time we were closer to the border, but it gradually became safer. And with artillery, the closer you fire from, the more effective it is.

I’m sure no army in the world exerts as much effort to protect the civilian population as the IDF does. Shin Bet and military intelligence send SMS evacuation notices — recently they learned how to connect to the Palestinian emergency-alert systems. Planes and helicopters drop huge numbers of leaflets; I kept one as a memento. If a large building that may contain civilians needs to be evacuated from an area that hasn’t yet been cleared, they do a “roof knock”: first they drop a metal dummy warhead onto the roof, and only then do they demolish the building.

We, as artillerists, also took part in evacuating civilians. How? Quite simply. Artillery fires not only high‑explosive fragmentation rounds but also illumination and smoke shells. We created a smoke screen. If a quarter needs to be evacuated, say, to the south, we fire three barrages to create curtains on the west, east, and north — then people understand which way to go.

Drones fly overhead, satellites are watching, and there are established procedures: once people leave, artillery preparation begins, then engineer units enter, then armored units, and then motorized infantry.

Of course there are civilian casualties, and I regret that — even though it’s the enemy’s civilian population, I’m deeply sorry. But on our side everything possible is done to minimize that harm. With Hamas it’s the opposite. I’ve seen them fire from areas with civilians.

The destruction in Gaza is staggering, and Hamas bears the responsibility for that. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. It’s often impossible to tell who is a terrorist and who isn’t. In their own videos Hamas fighters wear uniforms and green headbands, but in reality they run out in jeans and T‑shirts, fire RPGs, toss them aside, and flee.

I didn’t see a single intact building in Gaza — some were completely destroyed, others damaged more or less severely. There was debris everywhere. I was only in fully evacuated areas, so I didn’t see any Gaza residents.

In Gaza I saw ordinary homes. Not at the level of Tel Aviv, but similar to Israeli suburbs — like in an Israeli Arab city or an ultra-Orthodox Israeli town. Gaza City itself is huge, with skyscrapers. People claim it’s an open-air prison, but they had everything. I stayed in excellent hotels, visited beautiful beaches with yellow sand, and saw roads (judging by what remained of them). In Shati, Gaza City, and Beit Hanoun, I saw normal, spacious apartments.

My emotions about what was happening in Gaza are mixed: on one hand, there’s the question of what we did; on the other, what else could we do? And on a third level, they will remember it forever. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s not out of malice — it’s a pragmatic thought. In my division there are people whose sisters were killed. Or fathers. Or whose homes burned. Or whose kibbutz in northern Israel was bombed by Hezbollah, and they couldn’t evacuate their belongings because they were fighting Hamas in the south.

I don’t like being at war. It gives me no pleasure. Of course, there is a certain pride in serving in the army — I’m wearing my division’s army T-shirt right now. But this is not what I want to do. On October 8, 2023, I was supposed to start university. I still did, but I’m taking exams after everyone else, without attending classes.

What emotions does Gaza evoke? Fear!

Andrey, driver, conscript soldier

I serve as a driver in combat support units. Since the very start of the war, I’ve been stationed at a base just a few kilometers from Gaza. Sometimes it’s quiet, and sometimes the explosions are so loud that the windows and doors shake.

Rockets are still occasionally fired from Gaza, but Gaza rockets, as is well known, are homemade. The Iron Dome intercepts the vast majority of them. If a rocket is clearly heading for the desert, an uninhabited area, it might not be intercepted.

The kibbutzim bordering Gaza that were affected by the Hamas attack in 2023 are gradually seeing residents return, although some never left. Four or five months after the October 7 attack, we were taken to the site of the Nova festival and to nearby towns, where we were told what had happened there. By then, some people were already living there again.

Periodically I have to drive soldiers into Gaza or pick them up from there. As you approach, you hear artillery and gunfire. The closer to the fence, the more tense it gets — you stay on high alert. My vehicle hasn’t been fired on, but I know drivers who have been hit by mortar fire.

I drive a regular army-plated vehicle — the same one I use around Israel. I cross the fence separating Gaza, stop near tanks and APCs, a soldier transfers over to them, and we split up. I also pick them up the same way. Soldiers enter Gaza fully armed, wearing helmets and body armor.

Around you are only sand hills, piles of debris, dust, and dirt. Buildings along routes used by military convoys can’t be left standing — they could be used for firing. That’s why the buildings near the roads are demolished.

The farthest I’ve driven into Gaza was a few months ago: we delivered equipment to Rafah for Netanyahu’s meeting with combat unit soldiers. We went in, set everything up, and left. The drive in and back was fairly calm; it seemed no VIP would go into a dangerous area.

Rafah is all dust— sand mixed with brick fragments. You drive, and clouds of it follow you. You have to cover your face to avoid breathing it in. I don’t know what the roads are like; I only drove off-road. Maybe there were roads under the layer of dust and sand.

Many houses were made of light-colored stone, but almost all are rubble or remain just as frames. The ones that survived are used by the IDF for headquarters and other purposes. Judging by the ruins — and looking at Google Maps for reference — houses in Rafah were similar to those on the West Bank, meaning not very affluent. I didn’t see any local residents.

In Rafah I saw Russian-language graffiti, including the abbreviation “PTN PNK” — probably left by some of our Russian-speaking soldiers. I also saw graffiti with Israeli unit symbols and some Latin-letter abbreviations.

I’ll refrain from commenting on what should be done with Gaza. In the army, we aren’t really allowed to talk about politics. What emotions does Gaza evoke? Fear.