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Serving with Arik Sharon

(Times of Israel) Barbara Opall-Rome - Thirty years ago, my husband Zvi joined Sayeret Shaked, an anti-terror commando force personally designed by Arik Sharon, then commander of Israel's Southern Command, and commanded by Benjamin "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer, now a veteran lawmaker and former defense minister. The unit was steeped in Sharon's doctrine of proactive, probing operations deep in enemy territory; never stopping until the mission was complete; yet never leaving anyone behind. From their base near Beersheba, the unit made nightly raids into Jordan, ambushing PLO fighters backed by Saudi forces who repeatedly attempted infiltrations and mortar strikes against civilian and industrial targets on the Israeli side of the Dead Sea until 1970, when the Hashemite Kingdom reasserted control over its shared border with Israel. Redeploying to Gaza, in less than a year Sayeret Shaked arrested or killed all but eight of the 308 terrorists on their mission list in Sharon's counter-terror clean-up campaign there.
2014-01-14 00:00:00
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