Yedioth Ahronoth: Disagreements inside the Israeli commando unit after difficult direct battles with Hezbollah fighters

The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that soldiers in the Egoz Unit, which is fighting in southern Lebanon, entered into what it described as difficult discussions with the unit’s commanders.

Yedioth Ahronoth quoted the Israeli army’s investigations as saying that the fighters complained about a decision made by one of the commanders in the battle, which led to a direct confrontation with Hezbollah fighters of the “Radwan Unit” – described as the elite force of the Lebanese Hezbollah – in which soldiers from the Egoz unit were killed and wounded, at a time when the army stressed that it trusts the judgment of the field commanders.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the soldiers expressed serious concerns during their talks with their commanders about the way decisions were made in the unit on both the professional and personal levels, including the conditions of service and the way some targets were attacked during the recent confrontation with Hezbollah.

The tension between the soldiers of one of the elite Israeli army unit and their commanders and the frustration felt by them came in the wake of the difficult battle at the beginning of the ground operation in Lebanon, specifically at the height of the operational activity of the Israeli army against Hezbollah.

The Israeli soldiers demanded clarification and a change in the way their new commanders make decisions before they are asked to fight across the border again.

These disagreements came in recent days in conjunction with the redeployment of officers in the unit as replacements for those killed or wounded in the difficult confrontation with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

It’s worth noting that Egoz unite is a specialized infantry unit in Israeli army’s Commando Brigade, which considered one of its most important elite units.

It’s known as Unit 621, and its name means “counter-guerrilla warfare and small-scale combat”, and it’s at the forefront of the forces facing Hezbollah.

The unite was established to confront Hezbollah in 1995, and following the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, it shifted its operations to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.