In his first major reflection following intense combat operations in southern Lebanon, 7th Armored Brigade Commander Col. Shaul Yisraeli detailed the unprecedented engineering breakthroughs and shifting battlefield dynamics his forces faced.
Speaking prior to the recent ceasefire, Yisraeli revealed how his brigade successfully breached strategic pathways to the Litani River while neutralizing massive subterranean "cities of refuge" constructed by Hezbollah over the last two decades.
Yisraeli selected the most experienced HEO (Heavy Engineering Equipment) operators to breach routes en route to the Litani River - a mission recognized as one of the most complex engineering tasks of the ground maneuver in southern Lebanon.
It was late at night in southern Lebanon. Inside the steel cabin of a D9 bulldozer, sat the vehicle commander and, to his left, an HEO operator, staring forward with absolute alertness.
Ahead of them lay the path to the Litani River; behind them, the tanks of the 7th Brigade awaited clearance to move. Between them was a narrow, steep, and menacing path, parts of which ran alongside a sharp, high cliff.
As the force advanced toward the river, their senses sharpened against the array of threats lurking in the area: anti-tank missile cells waiting in the thickets and among the mountains, suicide drone operators, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), rocket barrages, and mortar shells.
The bulldozer was at the forefront, at the very tip of the force. The bulldozer’s blade pushed forward, sweeping away everything in its path - including well-concealed explosives as well as boulders - at moments when a new path had to be paved according to the plan approved by Col. Yisraeli.
Inside the front cabin, critical decisions were made regarding the continuation of the ground maneuver: where to turn, at what speed, how to navigate an incline, and how to keep moving when any single mistake could halt the entire force. The massive vehicle, weighing around 60 tons, could slide, a path could collapse under the weight, and any delay could expose the advancing tanks trailing behind it.
After long, nerve-wracking minutes, the moment of truth arrived. In a small, narrow sector, the bulldozer was exposed to Hezbollah lookouts. Fire erupted. At that precise moment, the courage of the HEO operators was put to the test. They did not stop.
They pushed forward until the bulldozer’s blade touched the waters of the Litani River. A glance backward revealed the tank crews of the 7th Brigade slowly advancing along the route that had just been breached.
At the very start of the interview, Yisraeli chose to pause and emphasize the magnitude of this achievement - and the contribution of the 603rd Engineering Battalion. "The brigade's engineering companies receive no recognition at all for what they do," he said.
"They essentially breached the crossings at the Litani and the Salouqi simultaneously. This is an event that has never happened before. Non-commissioned officers, engineering force foremen - in my eyes, they are as vital as nuclear engineers. They executed engineering maneuvers that were thought to be impossible, creating the conditions for the attack.
"Their company commanders are heroes, too. They engaged at point-blank range. Exemplary battles. When the 7th Brigade killed 68 terrorists in recent weeks, they played a part in it."
7th Brigade first to enter combat after ceasefire
The 7th Brigade was the first to enter combat after the fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah. "It started with a surreal scene," the Brigade Commander recounted. "We launched a drone in the Misgav Am area before the maneuver began. On one side of the screen, you see a baby playing on the lawn, and a moment later, you see terrorists moving south and east in southern Lebanon."
Following a green light from the political echelon, the brigade launched a maneuver toward the first line of Lebanese villages - including Taybe, Markaba, and Rabb El Thalathine - aiming to prevent raids against northern Israeli communities and anti-tank missile fire. In the second stage, the Golani Brigade joined them. After stabilizing lines in the villages, the dramatic phase arrived: capturing Hezbollah's "city of refuge" in Qantara.
"We are talking about an infrastructure built over roughly 20 years, which the Iranians constructed there alongside Hezbollah," Col. Yisraeli said. "Rooms, organized weaponry, and the exact features found in all of Hezbollah's cities of refuge: firing and anti-tank positions facing Misgav Am, and a launch base for raids into our territory."
According to him, "The unique aspect of Qantara is that it sits directly above the Wadi Salouqi and a junction connecting to the Litani, effectively commanding the villages of Froun and Ghandouriyeh."
The fighters of the 7th Brigade later reached this area, where they experienced an unprecedented attack involving hundreds of suicide drones. In the third stage of the fighting, the brigade’s battalions joined forces with the Golani Brigade to capture all the terrain overlooking the Litani and the Beaufort ridge, conducting raids toward Ghandouriyeh to locate and destroy terror infrastructure above and below ground.
"The ground was burning," Col. Yisraeli described it. The frequency of engagements was high. "We completed the capture of this area only in the last two weeks, leaving dozens of terrorists dead," he said.
As if that were not enough, an additional tank company, operating alongside the Commando Brigade, attacked Hezbollah infrastructure north of Beaufort - structures dug deep into the ground, from which anti-tank missile launchers were aimed at the Metula area and the Galilee Panhandle as a whole.
"In the initial attacks, dozens of anti-tank missiles were fired at us," the Brigade Commander explained.
"The enemy was deployed in highly established, widespread ambushes across the terrain."
Alongside this, he pointed to a threat that has become increasingly central to the battlefield: explosive drones. Yisraeli emphasized that this is a "new threat that we deal with every day, using tactics and drills. I hope this serves as a wake-up call for the state to invest in what the IDF has requested for many years regarding a solution to the drone threat. Now is the moment to snap out of it and move this forward. I am confident that we will gradually establish superiority over this threat as well."
Learning from the past
Ahead of the maneuver toward Wadi Salouqi, the brigade conducted a learning process based on the complications encountered during the Battle of Salouqi in the Second Lebanon War.
The core conclusion was that the mission's purpose nearly 20 years ago had not been sufficiently clear. However, this time, according to Col. Yisraeli, the volume of munitions fired at the forces was larger and more varied.
The 7th Brigade gathered advance intelligence on the operational sectors using drones. Scans located Hezbollah explosive charges and booby traps on the routes, as well as anti-tank launchers primed and aimed at bottleneck crossings.
This intelligence made it possible to show platoon and tank commanders exactly what the routes looked like and where their vulnerabilities lay.
Only afterward were robots deployed. When they arrived in the sector, Hezbollah made an effort to use a variety of firepower to hit the vehicles. When the organization's operatives opened fire, Air Force forces identified them and struck with high precision.
"The third component involved advance raids by Egoz fighters in that area," the Brigade Commander shared. "This is what we call neutralizing ambush components - dismantling the adversary's system: charges, anti-tank missiles, and lookouts, on the way to Hezbollah's cities of refuge."
The 7th Brigade's ground maneuver exposed the infrastructure of Hezbollah's "cities of refuge."
Some were dug deep into the earth to grant them immunity from airstrikes. Engineering mapping proved that the exact same contractor built all of them. The rooms, corridors, launch sites, and anti-tank missile firing slits were all constructed to the same standard.
Col. Yisraeli noted that locating the cities of refuge in Qantara and Beaufort was faster than in Gaza, partly due to the size of the tunnels in Lebanon.
"They are larger, and once you locate the edge of the thread, it is easier to complete their mapping and lead to their destruction or neutralization," he said.
"It is important to say that we arrived highly prepared for the cities of refuge, with more accurate intelligence. Qantara is an example. It is longer, and we did not reach it during Operation Northern Arrows in September 2024. We wanted to, but we didn't reach it. And now there was an opportunity to deepen the achievement and the maneuver. Each of these cities of refuge is 1.2 kilometers long, and the other is 700 meters. Dozens of rooms dug deep into the ground, packed with weapons. Operatives emerged from there; we engaged them and killed them."
According to him, Hezbollah organized southern Lebanon as a multi-layered combat system, where each line served a different purpose: part was meant to strike the Yisraeli home front, part served as a "staging ground" for the Radwan Force before launching a raid into the Galilee, part was designed to delay the IDF's ground maneuver, and part was used for storing weapons, ammunition, or housing reserve fighters for various missions deeper inside.
The systems were built through Iranian-Lebanese cooperation, above and below ground, incorporating fortifications designed to be immune to Israeli Air Force strikes.
"It must be noted that we found additional fortified infrastructure directly on the riverbeds," the 7th Brigade Commander explained.
"More localized fortified infrastructure, segments of about 80 to 100 meters. This is essentially the second line. Atop them sits a system of ambushes consisting of anti-tank cells and drones."
He added that "in some cases, there is a subterranean component of more than 200 meters, allowing them to withstand airstrikes, emerge, harass IDF forces, and retreat back underground."
The evolving drone threat
There is no doubt that Hezbollah's use of suicide drones will continue to intensify. The weight of the explosives will rise, operational ranges will expand, and the nature of war has already changed.
When asked to what extent drones alter the battlefield, Col. Yisraeli replied, "We must not obscure reality. Drones have become a significant component that absolutely requires us to change our operational patterns. This is a very significant matter. We have already managed to analyze them and provide a response through tactical operational behavior, but there is certainly still a long way to go."
Nevertheless, he remains optimistic. "Unlike an anti-tank missile, where the technological solutions are more complex, in this case, I think we can already envision the solution. There is physics involved in development processes. They will take us some time, and until then, we will have to work with what we have. Part of the solution is low-tech, like nets. We are improving all the time. The way we maneuver is changing, too."
On the future coping with the rise of drone threats, the Brigade Commander said: "On a strategic level, from a long-term perspective, I actually think this threat is simpler to counter. We have industrial technologies. We can take the time to develop them."
The role of tanks in modern warfare
It is impossible to speak with an armored brigade commander without discussing the status of the tank on the battlefield - especially after a General Staff that made a bitter mistake chose to cut the number of tanks in the IDF in the past, an error they are now trying to correct by accelerating production lines.
"First of all, the tank has long ceased to be just a tank," Col. Yisraeli said. "It is a multi-sensor system. It is a large, armored vehicle that brings energy inward to locate and destroy the enemy. In the future, many systems will be operated from it - meaning, we are almost there already. Our drones? Operated from the tank.
"You shorten the process and enable opening new sectors much faster, closing the loop between collection and attack. There are many incidental sensors mounted on the tank. By virtue of its sheer presence, it incidentally generates both C4I capabilities and target acquisition. And it must be said, it can bring both kinetics and directed-energy weapons into the battlefield, which is why it remains a highly, highly functional tool in combat."
Recently, a Hezbollah terrorist managed to infiltrate all of the IDF's defensive lines in southern Lebanon, reaching the Moshav of Margaliot by crossing the fence, and opened fire with a pistol at forces until he was neutralized.
When asked what this incident says about the IDF's conduct, Col. Yisraeli responded, saying, "I think that beyond the basic aspects of any incident where a terrorist infiltrates, we need to examine our defense system - all the forces, and the way we deploy them."
According to him, "We are currently more occupied with the attack and maneuvering forward" (the interview took place prior to entering the ceasefire with Hezbollah), "but we must be clear-eyed. There is a low signature on one hand, and less effectiveness from a Radwan Force battalion.
"We saw what happens when a thousand terrorists descend upon communities on October 7th, God forbid. We absolutely need to ensure we do not forget about defense. First and foremost, the defense of the communities. This is certainly an event that flashes a red light for us, but I say realistically, isolated terrorists from Gaza and Lebanon - I think that is an issue we will handle. It is the IDF's job to stop it. That is what intelligence collection is for. There is a defensive system that needs to provide a solution for this."
Addressing Force Burnout
After nearly three years of high-intensity warfare on a historic scale, company commanders, battalion commanders, and brigade commanders can look back at the campaign. The question arises whether it is time for a change: to prevent burnout, cultivate higher quality command, and perhaps shorten the duration of various roles in light of the vast operational experience gained.
"I must say there is a lot of logic and sense in what you are saying," Col. Yisraeli replied. "I think the tenures of battalion commanders, for example, should be reduced. In our DNA, we don't ask for concessions, and we are truly occupied every day with the current battle and planning the battle a week from now - and rightly so. But I agree, and I assume the echelon of battalion commanders, for all the reasons you mentioned, requires a change. I also recommended this to my corps commander and division commander, and I assume it will head in that direction."
He added, "We do not know if we are at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the war. I tell this to the guys: reality surpasses all imagination, and we must pause to adapt ourselves to a reality that has completely changed."
'The greatest heroes are wives of the battalion commanders'
Toward the conclusion of the interview, Col. Yisraeli wished to emphasize a different point - not tanks, not drones, and not underground systems, but the people anchoring the campaign from behind: the families of the commanders, and primarily the wives of the battalion commanders.
"The wives of the battalion commanders," he said. "Ultimately, our battalion commanders are the demographic bearing the most complex burden - cognitive, professional, and also physical. Continuous combat. Their wives are raising young children. The brigade commanders?
"Their children are older. It is easier for brigade commanders to handle this situation. And my greatest heroes are the wives of the battalion commanders. I don't know how to promise them solutions. I know how to empathize, and I know how to appreciate them, and that is what the entire nation of Israel needs to do."
He returned to the need to alter the IDF's operational patterns during a prolonged war. "This is a matter of the most authentic kind because it is a professional issue. I think we need to better plan our operational pattern. The IDF has been in prolonged, lengthy combat in other eras as well, and balances must be found even within such periods of war.
