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Female Reservists from the Sky Rider Drone Unit Helped Soldiers Destroy the Enemy and Emerge Unscathed
(Israel Hayom) Bat-Chen Epstein Elias - For more than two hours, female soldiers from the IDF's Sky Rider drone unit, who were watching the sector from above, escorted the Golani Brigade's 13th Battalion inside Gaza, guarding it from enemy fire. They saw from above how the terrorists tried to get close to the battalion's Namer APCs and how, thanks to the orders and direction they gave to the forces on the ground, the terrorists retreated under fire. Thanks to their directions, the soldiers emerged from the fierce battle almost unscathed. The Sky Rider unit belongs to the 215th Artillery Brigade. Using UAVs, it is responsible for providing visual intelligence to forces maneuvering on the ground. It is also responsible for dispatching combat helicopters or sending in additional forces. Lt. S.T. describes how on Nov. 1, "we saw with the drone heavy fire directed at our forces' vehicles....At first, the battalion was ordered not to leave the vehicles to keep the soldiers safe. They were traveling with hatches and turrets closed, and they had no way of knowing what was going on outside the APCs. So, the fact that we were there with the battalion was critical for them." Minute by minute, they directed combat helicopters, as well as artillery and mortar fire, to the site of the battle. Sgt. S., 24, said, "Suddenly, we saw an insane amount of fire directed at our soldiers. These are soldiers we were with in preparation for battle, people we know; we're directing the troops and the helicopter and hoping that our directing fire is really helping our forces." Staff Sgt. A., 23, recalls, "The terrorists were so close that it looked like they wanted to place IEDs on the vehicles. But the fire we directed at them managed to drive them away....It's an amazing feeling to see a tank moving in the right direction thanks to our reporting and then firing a shell that pushes the terrorists away. That's why I volunteered for this position. Just for that moment." R., 23, said, "We saw squads of terrorists who wanted to hit our soldiers from close range. We were also afraid that they would try to kidnap soldiers....We were sure we had just seen the 13th Battalion hit really hard." But on the day after the battle, they were told that the 13th Battalion had left the field with only seven lightly wounded from smoke inhalation. They had managed to protect the soldiers from enemy fire.