Meet the Israeli tank unit that led the way into Gaza

Master Sergeant Dar Cohen was at home on Friday, October 6. It was Shabbat, and like most Israelis, he was expecting a normal Simchat Torah holiday over the weekend. However, on the morning of October 7, his phone began ringing. It was like an “alarm clock,” he recalled because the buzzing from the vibrations of the calls came so often and so close together. When he picked up the phone, it was his commanding officer of his tank unit who told him to get his bags ready and turn on the news.

Cohen is an IDF reservist in the 401st Armored Brigade, which has played a key role since October 7 in defeating Hamas. Its tanks led the way into northern Gaza. The brigade is one of several Israeli tank units that use the Israeli 60-ton Merkava IV tanks. He’s also used to getting calls when there are tensions or a potential for war. Usually, those calls are a kind of “hurry up and wait,” because Israel hasn’t launched a ground operation into Gaza since 2014. In many flare-ups, such as in 2018 and 2021, Israel would send a few tanks to the border, just in case, which then would be put back on the tank transporter trucks and sent home.

October 7 was different. Cohen’s tank unit would be one of the first to respond to the Hamas invasion, driving all night to meet the enemy head-on, and his unit would be the first to get into Gaza, striking northern Gaza on October 27 to defeat the enemy.

Cohen and I met on October 8, when he and his tank crew, along with several other tanks from his unit, were deploying north of Gaza. The day was chaotic, with dead bodies of terrorists still strewn everywhere in the area. It took me almost four months to find Cohen again and speak to him about his experience that day and in the months that followed.

Cohen said that on the morning of October 7, his family helped him pack a bag for reserve duty, and soon afterward, a fellow reservist picked him up to head south. It conjured up images of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israelis were sent running to join their units during a holiday. Cohen recalled that he had just been watching a television program commemorating 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, and here he was living something similar. “We were talking about how that war was a catastrophe; how naive we were, as within 12 hours we would be going to our Second Yom Kippur War in our generation.”

Cohen has been in the armored corps since 2010. In his mandatory service, he was trained to be a tank gunner. He is now a reservist, part of Company A in the 46th battalion of the 401st brigade. He is 31 years old. On the morning of October 7, he traveled to a base where there were tanks located in central Israel in case of an emergency. What that means is that the tanks are equipped and ready to go, and he has practiced with these tanks for years, so he knows them. When they arrived, it was around one in the afternoon. The news was describing the disaster on the border of Gaza. The news was describing the disaster on the border with Gaza. Cohen had already seen one of the videos online of the Bibas family being kidnapped. For him that was enough and he deleted his Telegram.

Tanks take time, so there was thought of sending men in as infantry

With the country in chaos, the army didn’t know if the men in the tanks might be better used as infantry. It takes time to deploy tanks, usually they have to wait to be loaded on a giant flat-bed truck to be moved. It’s not usual to drive them 100 kilometers to a front line, because they will harm the roads and harm their own treads in the drive. When it became clear sending the tank crews to fight as infantry was a waste of their expertise, Cohen and his men saddled up in their tanks and decided to do the unprecedented: Drive across Israel to get into the fight.

It takes time to deploy tanks; usually, they have to wait to be loaded on a giant flat-bed truck to be moved. It’s not usual to drive them 100 kilometers to the front line because they would harm the roads and as well as their own treads in the drive. When it became clear that sending the tank crews to fight as infantry would be a waste of their expertise, Cohen and his men saddled up in their tanks and decided to do the unprecedented: drive across Israel to get into the fight.

The brigade commander told the company commander of Cohen’s units, “I’ll see you in the morning on the Gaza Strip border,” he recalled. “So, we got up on the tanks, and we drove more than 12 hours on the highway, sometimes under the highway, on fields [to get to Gaza].” The tanks got help from a private vehicle that helped them navigate the roads, a father and son who were helping pave the way for the behemoth tanks.

They still didn’t know how bad the situation was at the border. We now know that terrorists broke into many communities and continued to massacre and kidnap people throughout the day. Tanks were badly needed in these battles to even the playing field against thousands of terrorists. “It was when reality hit that we stopped at Highway 6 down south, and we stopped at a Dor Alon gas station,” Cohen said.

The handful of tanks parked to get coffee. “Now about 4am, all of a sudden we see refugees from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

The kibbutz was completely destroyed, I understood. I saw this woman going down off the bus, accompanied by soldiers, with that 1,000-mile stare. I approached her and asked if she wanted water, and she was mumbling that everyone had been massacred.”

Many of the men had now been awake for 20 hours. But there was more driving to do.

Cohen had been a student in Sderot. As the tanks approached the city, they knew terrorists had attacked the city with white Toyota trucks. “I could see Sderot and the kibbutzim and the trail marks of bombardments where they had blown up homes and cars. Your heart rate goes up,” he said. As the sun began to rise at around 6:30 a.m., the small group of tanks divided its force, sending several soldiers to fight in Kibbutz Kfar Aza and several others to drive from near Sderot toward Yad Mordechai; this way, they could take up a key position to block terrorists who had infiltrated near Netiv Ha’Asara and Zikim. “We were the first organized tanks to arrive in this area as reserves. It’s easy to bring infantry, but we were the first tanks to arrive with full power,” Cohen said.

The presence of a tank is something that brings an instant sense of power and security. “By this time, we were bombarded by mortars, and there were still bodies of terrorists around. Apocalyptic scenes. I try to put myself in the shoes of someone else, but when you see the residents, children, and families fleeing and…they see a company of tanks with flags of Israel on the way to fight terrorists, and they were begging us to help their families… for them to see us on the street, it’s something powerful. You can hear the vibration of the tanks long before they arrive. I hoped we were able to give reassurance in these tough times,” Cohen recalled.

After deploying on a hill north of Yad Mordechai, which overlooks northern Gaza, the tanks waited. For 20 days, Israel waited as forces were gathered; fields grew heavy with armored vehicles, and 300,000 men were called up. They trained and prepared.

Finally, on the evening of October 27, the time came to enter Gaza. They recited the Kiddush – it was Shabbat – and “our commander stated that we must never forget what happened here in Israel on October 7th and that we cannot let history repeat itself. As armored corps soldiers serving in 401, we knew we were the first ones to enter the Gaza Strip, leading the way for the whole IDF in its ground offensive. Along with the pride that comes with this understanding comes great responsibility as well. We all knew what was on our shoulders and that everyone in Israel was looking at us,” Cohen said.“

The moment we got the green light marked the beginning of the end of Hamas, and that, to us, was a moment we knew was a turning point in history and that we were a part of it.” 

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.