A Rare Interview with the israel navy Seal Unit’s Commander
on the occasion of the unit’s 70th anniversary
First published in a supplement to the newspaper Yediot Ahronot on September 4, 2020
Translated by Omer Rabin, Unit Alumna and Atalef Foundation Volunteer
Seven decades after the first “Men of Silence” dived into the waters of the Mediterranean to defend the young country, the naval commando unit continues to adapt. The commander of Shayetet-13 (literally “flotilla-13” and also known in Israel as Unit-13 or the Unit), Colonel D., discusses daring operations far from home and how sensitive and dangerous the activities of his soldiers are, reveals what he thinks of the possibility of women as commando fighters and explains why a 94-year-old fighter who blew up enemy ships with his own hands is his favorite diving partner.
Silent Fighters
Colonel D. turns his gaze to the huge map of the Middle East that hangs on the wall of his office at the Shayetet 13 headquarters in Atlit. When we ask him how far the naval commando fighters under his command have come this year, he replies in one short sentence and immediately accompanies him with elegant evasion: "Wherever there is a sea - we are able to operate. But in the Unit, when you want to avoid talking about something, you announce, 'Going down for a dive.' So here, I inform you: 'Going down for a dive.'"
Unlike in Air Force attacks, the daring actions of the Unit’s fighters are completed in silence. Most do not even receive media coverage in what is defined as "foreign publications." A few cases of mysterious sabotage of oil pipelines in the Syrian region or in ships that smuggled weapons that caused great economic and operational damage to the "axis of evil" nevertheless reached the public, but no one claimed responsibility, of course not Israel.
Shayetet-13 received a medal from Chief of Staff Kochavi last summer. It was also accompanied by personal certificates of appreciation from Navy Commander Eli Sharvit for what was defined as "activities against the intensification of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis." "At the end of any such operation," Colonel D. reveals, "the Chief of Staff makes sure to personally call and congratulate the commanders and fighters."
The IDF calls the current period "BBW" - the battle between the wars. Since D. took command of the prestigious unit in which he grew up about a year ago, his fighters have carried out dozens of covert operations in the waters of the Middle East. They all have one goal: to keep the next war as far away as possible and to undermine Iran's operational and economic ability to circumvent the restrictions and help Hezbollah. The head of the IDF Operations Division, Major General Aharon Haliva, defines these operations as "on the verge of imagination."
In a first and rare interview celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Unit, Colonel D. speaks of the turbulent period in which he commanded the "Men of Silence." "We had thousands of diving and sailing hours this year. It's much more than in my time as a fighter,” he says, "we have also developed new methods of warfare. The operational challenge brings you to a situation where you are required to develop a suitable weapon within a few days or weeks, pinpoint it and make sure it brings the result down to the millimeter. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's amazing."
"The cheese is moving," borrowing a concept from the business marketing field. "And the Unit, like all the special units now in the IDF, is being reorganized. “The intelligence corps and 8200 create a lot of challenges in the information they obtain, and the competition is on the 'Time to Market' - how long it takes from the ideation stage until the moment you are ready to execute.”
How long does it take to prepare?
"Our hourglass turns over from the moment the target is approved by the Chief of Staff. Sometimes there are a few days to prepare, usually there are two or three weeks, and sometimes even months.” D. looks at the map again. "Sometimes, reaching the destination secretly is more complex than the activity itself.”
What is different about preparing for an operation in a particularly distant destination?
"Apart from the operational heart of the mission, it is another challenge in itself to prepare rescue forces and create envelops that will allow us to operate in very distant spaces. It requires creative planning, because due to the long distance there aren’t the same tools available compared to operations near the border. At the end of the day we’re talking about a handful of fighters, extremely far away from home. They performe thousands of hours of training and practice the most complex scenarios that could happen prior to the operation. Any mistake in preparation can cause operational malfunction.”
"In this sense, the Unit’s challenge is greater than that of other units, because of the sea. The sea is not forgiving of equipment that has not been properly prepared, the sea is not forgiving of improper maneuvering and sometimes it just does not allow execution."
Do you ever return without completing a mission?
"Adherence to the mission is a value that has led us for more than 70 years. In recent years, there have been operations in which we reached the goal yet did not perform, because we didn’t have the suitable conditions. It is a test of maturity and responsibility to make such a decision and in most cases, we found a way to come back again and complete the mission, by addressing what was stopping us beforehand.”
"There are missions where there is a wait time of many days in the field, until execution. The wait is also part of the operation, and it requires patience until the conditions are fully mature. This is not a sort of flight and return to the squadron. You're waiting for the right conditions, and you don’t know when exactly they’ll arrive. When that happens - and it could be on the 12th or 13th day- you must 'explode' one hundred percent. And that’s after waiting in conditions that are not exactly an air-conditioned office. This sudden transition from zero to one hundred requires a very high sharpness in order to achieve accuracy in execution. This is also the reason why commanders must be there, up front. They need to influence, know and make decisions. Sometimes it seems simple to those who sit in HQ back home and do not experience the complexity. A failure to succeed is like a hair's breadth.”
2. The way up
The greatest disaster in the unit's history, Operation Poplar Song, dubbed the "Cruise Disaster," caught D. in officers' course. It was the night of May 4-5, 1997. A force of Shayetet fighters was sent to lay a cargo ambush in the Lebanese coastal town of Anzaria. During on-ground movement, the force was hit by several side charges. Eleven fighters were killed and in the exchange of fire that developed at the scene, the doctor who accompanied the force also fell.
"All the fighters there were people I knew closely. Friends. My classmates, or a class above me or below me. The late Guy Golan slept the whole route in the bed below me. Three years after he fell I was in the delivery room when his parents gave birth to his sister, Lihi. Today, Lihi serves in our Unit as a seamstress who prepares the vests and equipment for the fighters."
To what extent has this disaster shaped the path you chose?
"I imagined I would be an officer, but until then I had not thought about a military career. That incident greatly impacted my motivation to stay permanently."
Two of the fallen in Anzaria are Captain Zvi Grossman and Lt. Col. Yossi Korkin, z”l. “Because of Zvi Grossman I joined the Unit,” he remembers. “I was training with him in a pre-recruitment preparation course and he told me, ‘Come on.’ When I arrived at the unit, he was the only person I knew. He was then a trainee at the Advanced stage of training, and he was waiting for me to arrive. He was the only person I knew in the unit."
Yossi Korkin commanded the force in Ansaria and was killed while leading his fighters. This past Yom HaZikaron, the Israeli Day of Remembrance, COVID-19 restrictions prevented the commemoration of IDF casualties, but D. himself visited the gravesite of his revered commander. "To this day, I am in touch with Sarah, Yossi's mother," he says. The fighters visited the gravesites of the unit’s 85 fallen soldiers, saluted them and made sure to pass the documentation to the bereaved families.
D., 44, was born and raised close to the seafront of Tel Aviv, on Hayarkon Street. The eldest of three sons, he attended Ironi Yud Alef high school, was a sea scout and always knew he would join the Shayetet. "My parents did everything alone, with hard work," he says. "Dad was a kibbutznik from Givat Haim and came to town with nothing. He was one of the first graphic artists in the country and still works at it. My mother, who died in 2007, was the sales director of the Cameri Theater for 42 years."
Yoni, 36, his younger brother, was born with autism and mental disability. "Until the age of eight, he grew up at home. He knows how to express himself, but never uttered a word. When you look at him you see no difference. He looks like a completely normal person, only when he gets up and walks, there is some sort of limp, kind of like a leg kick. Yoni is one of the people I learned most from. Through him I learned how to respect others, people who are different, to accept. I learned what the power of family is in a moment like this. Not to be afraid of shame. Our strength even today stems from what Yoni taught us."
"Yoni has lived in Aleh Negev-Nahalat Eran since its inception. He slept in the same room with the late Eran Almog. Through there I am in very deep contact with Eran's father, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Doron Almog. A few days ago, I took one of my daughters to visit Yoni there. Because of COVID limitation I could not come with all of my children. But in every one of my roles, I make sure to bring my subordinates on a visit there. Once we even took the tenants there out to sea. The intelligence corps has a base very close to Aleh Negev and they support them voluntarily. I just closed the circle: after all the years that Aleh helped us, we helped Aleh Bnei Brak. They had a shortage of medical oxygen tanks during COVID, and we provided them."
"In my opinion, the State of Israel is measured not only by its security strength. Not only by the F35 we are talking about now, or by submarines that have been talked about in the past—which is the record in terms of security. "Small children, boys and adults like my brother, need a place where they can live their whole lives in a dignified and respectful way."
About the middle brother in the family, Ben, a video artist who lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University, says Col. D.: "He is the most talented in the family, and I hope he will return to live in the country."
Col. D is married, a father of three and lives in the center of the country. He enlisted in the IDF in 1995. Since wearing the white uniform for the first time and the bat's wing pin on his shirt, he has been under the command of Yoav Galant, who was the commander of the Unit when he was a young fighter in training, Erez Zuckerman (later Brigadier General), Ram Rotberg (later General, Navy Commander) and more.
Tal Shaul [board chair of AFINS’ Israeli partner, Atalef Foundation], former head of the GSS security division and inspiration for the character of "Krembo" in the film "Operation Grandma," was the commander of his fighters' squad. "The late Korkin, who later replaced him, was the one who took me to officers' course." When he finished the course and returned to the unit, that was still recovering from the huge disaster that befell it, D. was given command of the "preparatory" stage in the fighter training course. "Idan Haviv (famous Israeli singer) was my trainee there," he says with a smile.
D. continued to make an impact in the Unit. Shlomi Dahan (later colonel and Southern Brigadier General in Gaza) was then the commander of the Fighters' Squadron. "He appointed me his deputy," recalled Col. D, of the daring and esteemed officer who, moments after receiving the announcement of his appointment as the next commander of the Unit, hurried to the site of a tunnel that was exposed in his sector and had a serious car accident in which he was hit in the head and left partially paralyzed. "His daughter recently finished her service here as an instructor," says Col. D. "Shlomi came here, in a wheelchair, for the farewell we had for her. It was very exciting.”
In 2003, he joined the infantry to serve as Deputy Commander in the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade. He later returned to the Unit for a series of positions, and at his peak was appointed Deputy Commander of the unit under the command of Brigadier General (Res.) Shai Elbaz, and later under Brigadier General Rafi Milo (the brave officer who crossed the Lebanese border without permission in Hezbollah's underground tunnel).
He was supposed to take command of the missile boat division, but then came a phone call from Benny Gantz. Then Chief of Staff (now Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister), Gantz asked him to serve as head of his bureau. D. accompanied Gantz in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza and also remained in office with Gadi Eisenkot.
He then commanded the Navy Operations Department and was already destined to take command of the Reserve Brigade, but then the phone rang again. This time Eisenkot asked him to return to the bureau, to one of the most significant positions in the IDF: Assistant Chief of Staff. After completing the role, he insisted on returning to command the Unit.
3. The Ideal Diving Partner
Every Shayetet fighter knows that in diving, the most important person—on whom his life can actually depend- is his diving partner. During his many years in the diving unit, he dived alongside excellent partners. But when asked to choose the ideal partner for diving, he immediately shoots: "Zalman".
Zalman Abramov, 94, was one of the first 12 fighters to form the founding nucleus of Shayetet-13, and later served with the commander of the navy, the late Major General Yochai Ben-Nun.
"During World War II," Colonel D. describes, "Valerio Borghese's tenth fascist unit operated in Italy. They fought alongside the Nazis and drove Churchill and Eisenhower crazy when they sent divers and scuba vehicles on suicide missions. On its base was established the unit, a small force that would create chaos with large forces. That would upset the balance. "
"Our base in Palyam," Abramov recalled, "was in Sdot Yam. There we started practicing. There was a small group of between four and six guys, led by Yochai Ben-Nun, called the Squad. They sabotaged British vessels. Occasionally, when they received good intelligence, they went out to the harbor and stuck a mine to a British vessel. Not to drown, but more to cause damage, a hole in the wall. Despite their activities, the British navy continued to sail," he laughs.
Abramov was 19 years old at the time. "I was sort of the 'Squad' mission boy and Yochai saw that I was good and let me join. We would swim from the port of Jaffa to the open sea to Bat Yam, where British ships would dock, stick a mine to the side and leave. The mine would explode sometimes after a day, sometimes after two days and sometimes not at all."
The highlight of the up and coming unit’s activity was October 22, 1948. The warship Al-Amir Farouk was the flagship of the Egyptian Navy. "King Farouk took his ships and fired to the shore from the shores of Tel Aviv and Nahariya," explains Col. D. Maritime supremacy in that time was to remove these vessels from the sea, so that they will not threaten Israel from there.”
The procurement representatives of the country, which was then in its infancy, were able to discover several small explosive boats in Italy used by the same Italian fascist unit, which had been hidden after the war. The boats were purchased and with them came Fiorenzo Caprioti, a former fighter in the same unit whose services were hired to train Ben-Nun, Abramov and their comrades to operate the explosive boats, dubbed "crackers," decades before the Hebrew Language Academy expropriated the name in favor of hackers.
The plan was simple: just like they did it in the Italian unit: Load the cracker boat with explosives and drive it until it collides with the ship 'Al-Amir Farouk' and the minesweeper ship next to it, in order to blow them up.
Caprioti, the instructor, trained Abramov and his friends on the Sea of Galilee and taught them how to sail the explosive boat. The cover story, for which all the necessary paperwork was also prepared, was that it was the establishment of a lifeboat unit for pilots ejected from their aircraft into the seawater. "In 1948," says Colonel D., "teaching a 22-year-old to control such a small ship was no less difficult than learning to fly a plane."
At the end of the training, Abramov traveled with Ben-Nun to Jaffa to bring the explosives to the boats. "They asked us how much we needed," Abramov recalled. "We said we wanted three explosives, each weighing 300 kilos. They were stunned. 900 kilos? Who would give you such an amount? You can make anti-tank bombs out of it, we were told. We explained that was what we demanded, and we got it. We armed the three boats. "The entire Egyptian navy anchored in Alexandria. They saw us sailing in their direction and did not address these tiny boats at all."
Just before launching the operation, a problem arose. "We asked our Italian guide: 'After we blow up the ship, how do we get back?’” says Abramov. "He shrugged carelessly. 'Who's coming back?' he asked us. "At best, if you are lucky and stay alive, you will be taken captive. He was used to Italian cruises on suicide missions. But we decided: we are going back to motherland."
In the Italian unit, in order for the suicide bombers not to make any last-minute regrets, they used to tie themselves to the boat. The Italian guide used this method on his three trainees. "I untied the rope," Abramov reveals. "I didn't want to be tied to a boat. I made a loop and threaded it on my hand so I could get out quickly."
Colonel D. listens and rejoices. "I have heard Zalman tell this story so many times, and each time it excites me anew," he says. "This is the heritage of the Unit that continues to this day. Just this morning I approved plans for an operation. Small forces, small numbers. Just as they had left- three on the boats and two on the pickup boat."
As soon as the approval was received from Ben-Gurion, the signal was given, and the operation was launched. Ben-Nun, Abramov and another fighter named Yaakov Vardi set out in the explosive boats. Two other fighters—Yaakov Rituv and Yitzhak Brockman—were in the rescue boat. "It was clear to me that they would not return home without me," Abramov clarifies.
Vardi and Abramov stormed the huge ship with the explosives and, just before the explosion, they jumped into the water. Ben-Nun blew up the adjacent minefield, which began to rain down fire on them. He tried to jump out of his cracker but got entangled in a rope that tied him and, fortunately, tore at the last minute.
The explosions were intense. The two ships began to sink, and some of the fighters on board were killed and others drowned. Abramov, lying on the buoy among the bodies of the Egyptians, roared until his comrades in the rescue boat heard him, noticed the twinkle of his head and put him on the boat. The operation was crowned a huge success. Ben-Nun was also awarded the Hero of Israel Medal.
"Zalman Abramov is a human torpedo," Colonel D. defines it. “In our “MBM,” we want to create this kind of human torpedo. Today, due to the technological development of our opponents, it is much more difficult to preserve the components of secrecy and not be exposed when in action. But we still want the enemy to know that someone was there. It's far more daunting than a ton of explosives falling. This sense of permeability. The strategic value of some of the things that are done today is no less great than assassinations and explosions. But it must be very precise and elegant in order to bring the desired result. There are arenas that need to be focused on- they do not tolerate mistakes. The ‘zero to one hundred’ for them is much faster.”
4. “Recruits today are much more intelligent”
All these changes are also part of the reason for the change in the service route of the Unit, which was approved about two years ago and in which the fighters reach six years of service in the unit. "When I enlisted in the Unit, I was required to sign a permanent contract for a year and a half," explains D. "Now they are coming to six years of service, with the sixth year being their first year of studies, but in case of IDF emergency placement they are with me. This extension of the length of service makes it possible to improve the level of fighter’s professionalism, developing operational skills. This is something that must be constantly improved. We work a lot with the trainees on the sense of capability. Just like in Zalman's time: that the fighters know that no matter what happens to them- the state of the sea, the rope that is not released, the rescue that does not find them- they are still able to turn the bowl upside down and get out of the situation.
"This is exactly the reason why I chose Zalman as my partner. From the great value to heritage: from the importance of learning the past and seeing through it to the future. When I look at it, I see a lot of common sense, operational intelligence and simplicity. There was no question of ready or unprepared then. It was here and now. Even if we did not train, once we got approval, began a strategic window of time and a mission. The sinking of the 'Amir al-Farouk' has led to Israel's maritime superiority. Ships no longer came ashore."
"Even today, because of our intelligence superiority, there are many operational opportunities that cannot be prepared for months. The opportunity is now—and it is moving. Therefore, as in the Ben-Nun and Zalman era, one must rely on simplicity, common sense and very high personal abilities.”
Do the recruits joining the unit fit into this pattern?
"The recruits who come to us today are much more intelligent than in my time. Much more curious. Very focused on 'how can I improve and develop myself.' That's why the new training course is really tailored for them."
And can you also see women joining as fighters?
"When I am asked about integrating women as fighters, I always think of my daughters. I have two daughters and a son. I think how strong, smart and talented I am, and I am sure in terms of abilities they will surpass me. I also know the tremendous contribution of women to national security. Where will it go? Whatever those responsible for it will decide. For me, I would like Israeli society to allow them to realize their own potential."