Three female soldiers from the IDF’s Border Protection Corps spoke with Channel 12’s ‘Uvda,’ in interviews broadcast on Thursday evening, discussing the event one year ago in the Gaza Strip that heavily altered their lives.
The soldiers, Maj. Nurit Rokach, Linor, and Stav, came under fire from 11 terrorists while in a jeep inside the Gaza Strip in April 2025. Stav was a driver, Linor a medic and drone operator, and Rokach was the company commander.
On April 19, 2025, they were driving alone in an unarmored jeep in the Gaza Strip, near Beit Hanun, without an accompanying convoy.
“I said several times that I do not want to bring vehicles into Gaza without a convoy,” Stav said.
“I immediately understood that a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at us,” Rokach said. “It passed through me. You feel a lot of pain,” Linor added.
“It was the scariest moment in my life. They kept shooting at us while I kept driving,” Stav recalled.
The vehicle overturned with the three soldiers still inside and under fire.
Linor recounted how she felt hurt that she was a medic, yet could not do anything after losing her leg in the incident.
Similarly, Rokach, as the commander, said she felt helpless in a way she had not before. “I had no doubt that I had lost my right leg. The thigh in my left leg was injured. I could not move, and I had no way to help them, which was very frustrating,” she said.
Terrorists, however, did not approach the vehicle, but continued to shoot from a distance.
“It was me alone. I understood that it was me against 11 terrorists. It truly was a suicide mission,” Stav said, after realizing her two colleagues were severely wounded.
She was able to place a tourniquet on Linor, and radio communications understood that terrorists were in the area, and three soldiers were wounded and needed medical evacuations.
One soldier killed, two severely wounded, during rescue operations
However, during rescue operations, a tracker, CWO G’haleb Sliman Alnasasra, was killed, and two others were severely wounded.
Following the explosion that killed Alnasasra, the three soldiers were evacuated, eventually reaching a military helicopter.
Discussing their rehabilitation processes, Rokach and Linor said that they did not understand how important having two legs is. “You need to get out of bed, learn how to sit down anew,” Rokach said.
Stav, in particular, remains angry at the military’s senior echelons for allowing them to operate in a dangerous area without appropriate combat support.
Rokach had been previously injured by terrorist gunfire during Hamas terror infiltrations into Urim base during the October 7 massacre.
“It was clear to me from October 7 that Hamas was not done with me – that something would happen,” she said.
Linor also lost a close friend who fell defending the Urim base on October 7.
