“I personally saw Hamas members dragging kids to the fences, placing them near IEDs against the fence, handing them weapons, etc…. and trying to force them into conflict with our soldiers so the media and record it all on camera. We were involved in a 3 hour ambush near the fence.

Also one time, myself and 3 of my soldiers (4 of us total) fell into a trap were we fell through a made shift platform from Hamas terrorists. About 2-3 stories was the fall . I stepped on this platform first , in full gear, and felt that the floor under me started to give. I tried to stop my soldiers from stepping on but by the time I told them to stop, I fell through right on my back onto jagged rocks, with the other 3 soldiers falling right after me and on top of me.

We were stuck there in that pit for 4 hours. We all believed we would be kidnapped and taken to Gaza by Hamas. We all received significant injuries, unable to move our physically get ourselves out (we had to be air lifted out ) so we called in for help, and waited for what seemed like eternity to either be killed or kidnapped. All we could do was wait and have our weapons points up towards the opening we fell through.”
– Shai Gershon. Golani 51. IDF. Israel, 2018.

This story was documented by Battles and Beers. Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.