A Story of a Soldier on October 7th

Elitzur Gitler was one of the soldiers working on October 7th. He is a part of the tank unit in the IDF. Below is his story. 

As a commander, Gitler was guarding a base, around 10 miles from the Gazan border, in Ashkelon with 8 others in his platoon. The base in which he was stationed had never been used; its only purpose was if there were to be a war with Gaza. The base only had a select number of large rooms and was attached to a larger base whose purpose was to control one of the iron domes, an Israeli missile defense system. 

It was October 7th, 2023. Gitler was on guard duty from 2:00 AM until 6:00 AM. “I had dozed off until one of my soldiers woke me up to sirens at 6:27 in the morning,” Gitler said. He had told his soldiers to go into the bomb shelters, so he opened up a room closest to him and went in there. “I realized it is much safer in the room than the open bomb shelter so… I told the rest of the soldiers to join me in the room,” he said. They sat there for a few hours in complete shock, checking the news to see if there was any update, yet there was nothing. 

As Gitler checked Telegram News, an uncensored platform where anyone can post, he started to see thousands dead in a kibbutz, thousands kidnapped and killed from a music festival, and hundreds of Hamas terrorists coming into Israel. “I told my soldiers to not check their phones... I said the same to myself, but I couldn't help but look,” he said. “I wanted to go and help when we were close. I knew they didn't have enough soldiers helping… [but] I could not leave some of my soldiers at the base, we needed to guard…I don't want to get me and my soldiers killed because we are not trained in that kind of warfare.” 

Once the commander arrived at the base, he told the soldiers they still needed to guard the base. Throughout the day, missiles were flying at and above the base, being deflected by the Iron Dome. Terrified, the soldiers persisted in guarding the base that night. 

The base had gone from 8 soldiers to 1000 in a few hours. Many higher-ranking soldiers went to the base as time went on. “I could not sleep knowing all that was about to happen,” Gitler said. 

On the morning of October 8th, Gitler and the rest of his platoon, guarding the base, were sent back to prepare them and their tanks for war.