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| The Retired Israeli General Who Grabbed His Pistol and Took On Hamas | The Retired Israeli General Who Grabbed His Pistol and Took On Hamas |
| (2 days later) | |
| Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli Army general, was taking a bike ride Saturday morning when a flood of alarming calls started coming in. | Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli Army general, was taking a bike ride Saturday morning when a flood of alarming calls started coming in. |
| A huge barrage of rockets had been fired from Gaza. Gunmen from Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls the territory, were pouring across the border. Soon he would learn a friend’s son was trapped in a kibbutz. | A huge barrage of rockets had been fired from Gaza. Gunmen from Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls the territory, were pouring across the border. Soon he would learn a friend’s son was trapped in a kibbutz. |
| He raced home, put on his uniform and grabbed his weapon, a nine-millimeter pistol. | He raced home, put on his uniform and grabbed his weapon, a nine-millimeter pistol. |
| Within minutes he was flying down a deserted highway in his new white Audi. As he neared the Gaza border, columns of black smoke rose in front of him, and the Israeli Army, at least at first, was nowhere to be seen. Hamas attackers were running across the landscape, hunched under the weight of heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers, shooting at him. | Within minutes he was flying down a deserted highway in his new white Audi. As he neared the Gaza border, columns of black smoke rose in front of him, and the Israeli Army, at least at first, was nowhere to be seen. Hamas attackers were running across the landscape, hunched under the weight of heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers, shooting at him. |
| “They were all over,” he said. “Hundreds of them.” | “They were all over,” he said. “Hundreds of them.” |
| Mr. Ziv, stocky, spiky-haired, a bit irascible, and the former head of the operations directorate of the Israel Defense Forces, is a well-known figure in Israel, especially now. His actions over the weekend — driving headlong into the battle zone armed only with a pistol, organizing a confused group of soldiers into a fighting unit and overseeing evacuations — have been widely publicized on Israeli news channels. In the process he has become an avatar of Israel’s D.I.Y. spirit — and of the failure of its military and intelligence agencies. | Mr. Ziv, stocky, spiky-haired, a bit irascible, and the former head of the operations directorate of the Israel Defense Forces, is a well-known figure in Israel, especially now. His actions over the weekend — driving headlong into the battle zone armed only with a pistol, organizing a confused group of soldiers into a fighting unit and overseeing evacuations — have been widely publicized on Israeli news channels. In the process he has become an avatar of Israel’s D.I.Y. spirit — and of the failure of its military and intelligence agencies. |