Ahraleh Yariv, in the command post for our mission, atop a hill on the Israeli side of the northern border.
The sun set at around seven, but we waited for darkness. It was nearly eight when we set out. Twenty minutes later, we crossed the border. I led the way, with Motti Nagar, Moshiko, Kuti Sharabi and, finally, Avi Telem behind. We carried the bugging equipment and our tools in our backpacks. Avi and I had a pair of binoculars. Mine were bulkier, but offered a slightly better view in the darkness. Each of us had an Uzi and a pair of grenades. All our planning had been aimed at getting on to the Golan, installing the bug and getting out again. If all went well, no one would even know we’d been there. But we had practiced what to do if things went wrong. If challenged or ambushed by a Syrian patrol, we would operate by old Company A rules. We would open fire.
The climb onto the plateau wasn’t too tough, not nearly as hard as our sayeret training treks. When we reached the top, there was no obvious sign of any Syrians. Still, we had to move slowly. Even with my binoculars, I could see barely 30 yards into the moonless night, and I had to scan the route ahead, back and forth, to make sure there were none of the fences or warning signs to keep the Syrians’ own soldiers, or unsuspecting shepherds, from a minefield. Soon, however, we found an obviously well-used footpath which I figured was very likely to be safe.
When we had walked a few minutes, we found ourselves going through a tangle of bushes and reeds, some of them up to two feet high, still dry and crackly from the summer. Aside from the risk of tripping, I knew the noise we were making might attract attention. I told the rest of the team to hang back 20 yards behind me. I moved forward to make sure the route was clear before signaling them to follow. I had been slightly nervous on the climb up, not so much because I expected trouble but because there was no way of knowing what to expect. Much as I tried to put the concerns of the generals from my mind, I also knew that this was no ordinary mission. But almost immediately, the nerves had gone, and I was now focused only on getting us through the next minute, the next 20 or 30 yards of the Golan.
But as soon as we’d made it across the plateau, we ran into trouble. We needed to cross the Banias River. On our map, I’d picked out what looked to be a Shallow ford. But the water was much higher than we expected. After spending 30 minutes scouting the bank for 150 yards in either direction, we settled on what seemed to be the shallowest part. Yet we hadn’t anticipated the need to cross a river in full flow. Worse, we’d never trained to do it. Not had we
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