IDF Brigade Prepares for Future Fighting

The Fellowship  |  November 30, 2017

Five IDF soldiers walking outside of a building fully armed.
IDF Brigade Prepares for Future Fighting

The IDF’s Kfir Brigade – one of several brigades adopted by The Fellowship and supported by our faithful friends – was created and trained to fight in the West Bank. But with trouble again lurking in Gaza, their focus is now shifting to the troubled coastal enclave. In a photo essay for The Times of Israel, the ever-intrepid Judah Ari Gross takes a look at this multi-faceted group of warriors who defend the Holy Land and her people:

Ordinarily based in the West Bank, the Kfir Infantry Brigade is now preparing to fight in a new area, one it’s had only scant experience with: the Gaza Strip.

The brigade, whose name literally means “young lion,” was formed in late 2005 within the Israel Defense Forces’ Central Command, specifically to fight Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank.

Now, the unit is being trained to fight in Gaza with the understanding that it may have to operate there as well in future conflicts, said Cpt. Sofar Ganem, a company commander in the brigade’s 90th Battalion…

But the unit has mostly been focused on the West Bank. For a time, each of its battalions was dedicated to one particular Palestinian city. But now that is changing.

Preparing for future combat in the Strip has meant, among other things, developing a platoon specifically trained in underground warfare, so they can effectively fight in the network of tunnels that Hamas and other terrorist groups have dug under — and sometimes out of — the coastal enclave, Ganem said.

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