Primary Characters
WEST BANK (JUDEA AND SAMARIA) YA’MAS
Abu Ahmed* One of the unit’s most experienced and decorated speakers, operators, and combat medics.
Eli Avram The first commander of the West Bank Ya’mas. A former Ya’ma’m operator, Avram was killed in August 1992 while leading an operation in Jenin.
Yaakov Berman A highly decorated member of the unit, Berman was a team leader from1998 to 2002; a squadron commander from 2002 to 2006; the commander of the Jerusalem Ya’mas unit from 2006 to 2010; and the commander of the West Bank Ya’mas unit from 2010 to 2013.
Uzi Levy A veteran Ya’ma’m operator who commanded the Ya’mas from 2000 to 2006.
Nasser A Druze officer (a veteran of the Golani Brigade’s Egoz counter-guerrilla unit) and decorated Ya’mas officer.
Sa’ar Shine One of the most decorated soldiers/policemen in Israeli history, Shine served in the unit from 2001 to 2010.
JERUSALEM YA’MAS
Yossi Aberfeld The unit commander at the outbreak of the intifada, Aberfeld was a highly experienced officer.
Alex Ya’mas operations officer and veteran team leader who served in both the Gaza and Jerusalem units.
Hayim The unit commander from 2004 to 2006.
Shai A veteran of IDF special operations, and a long-active member of the unit who served throughout the second intifada.
Yoni One of the unit’s veteran team leaders and officers.
GAZA YA’MAS
Yaakov “Kobi” Shabtai A former paratroop officer who served as the commander of the Ya’mas Gaza unit during the Oslo Peace Accords. At the time of this book’s writing he is a major-general (deputy commissioner) in the Israel National Police.
Yehonatan A former naval commando and operator in Duvdevan, Yehonatan went on to serve in the Ya’ma’m and in the Gidonim before being appointed commander of the Gaza Ya’mas unit in 2003.
Shimon Joined the unit in 1991, Shimon went on to serve his entire career in Gaza (he was in the Border Guard stationed in the Strip before becoming an undercover operative), going from new recruit to, ultimately, the unit commander.
Yaron A veteran Ya’mas officer in Gaza who served as operator, NCO, officer, team leader, operations officer, and deputy unit commander.
Israeli Military and Police Leadership
Ami Ayalon A former commander of Flotilla 13 and the IDF/Navy who served as director of the Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000.
Ehud Barak One of the founding fathers of the Sayeret Mat’kal commando unit, Barak became the most decorated Israeli soldier in IDF history. In the IDF he served as the head of military intelligence, the head of Central Command, and as the chief of the General Staff. He has also served as Israeli foreign and defense minister and ultimately prime minister.
Major General (INP) Uri Bar-Lev IDF officer who was the first commander of the Duvdevan undercover unit, Bar-Lev was also founder and the first commander of Unit 33, the elite undercover and intelligence force of the INP in Jerusalem and later nationwide.
Major General (INP) Yitzhak “Jack” Dadon Commanded the INP Border Guard from 1998 to 2001.
Meir Dagan A veteran paratroop officer and the man who created the Sayeret Rimon undercover unit that fought in Gaza from 1970 to 1971. Dagan ultimately reached the rank of major general and served two prime ministers as counterterrorism and national security advisor. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appointed him Mossad director in 2002, and he remained at the post until 2010.
Avi Dichter A veteran Sayeret Mat’kal officer, Dichter served as the Shin Bet director from 2000 to 2005.
Yuval Diskin A veteran reconnaissance officer during his service in the IDF, Diskin enjoyed a lengthy career in the Shin Bet and served as the agency’s director from 2005 to 2011.
Major General (IDF) Yitzhak Eitan IDF Central Command officer in charge from 2000 to 2002.
Major General (INP) Hasin Fares Commander of the INP Border Guards from 2004 to 2007 and the first Druze to reach that rank in the police.
Major General (INP) Yaakov Ganot Commander of the INP Border Guard from 2001 to 2002.
Major General (IDF) Moshe Kaplinsky IDF Central Command officer in charge from 2002 to 2005.
Major General (IDF) Amos Malka Head of Israeli military intelligence from 1998 to 2001.
Major General (IDF) Yair Naveh IDF Central Command officer in charge from 2005 to 2007.
Ariel “Arik” Sharon A veteran of the 1948 War for Israeli independence and one of the founding fathers of Israeli special forces, Ariel Sharon became one of the most successful generals in IDF history. He commanded the paratroopers that landed at the Mitla Pass in Sinai in 1956; led a division that punched Egyptian defenses in Sinai in 1967; and, as a general in 1973, saved the Sinai front with an audacious crossing of the Suez Canal. As defense minister in 1982, he was the architect of Israel’s disastrous foray into Lebanon. In 2000, as head of the opposition Likud party, he visited the Temple Mount, providing the Palestinians with the casus belli to launch the al-Aqsa intifada. He was subsequently elected as prime minister and served during most of the violence, spearheading Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Major General (INP) David Tzur A former commander of the Ya’ma’m (1991 to 1995), David Tzur served as INP Border Guard commanding officer from 2002 to 2004.
Moshe (“Bogie”) Ya’alon A veteran reconnaissance and commando officer, Moshe Ya’alon commanded the IDF’s Paratroop Brigade reconnaissance force as well as Sayeret Mat’kal; he also commanded A’man. He was the Central Command officer in charge from 1998 to 2000 and served as deputy chief of the General Staff and chief of the General Staff during the second intifada. At the time of this book’s writing, he is the Israeli defense minister.
Major-General (IDF) Aharon Zeevi-Farkash Head of Israeli military intelligence from 2001 to 2006.
Key Palestinian Figures
Yasir Arafat The president of the Palestinian Authority, the Egyptian-born Arafat founded Fatah, an Arabic acronym for Palestinian liberation movement, in Kuwait in 1959 and developed it into the most dominant of the Palestinian nationalist groups that employed terror against Israel and against other interests around the world. Kicked out of Jordan in 1970, Lebanon in 1982, and rumored to never sleep in the same bed twice, he was forced to enter into U.S.–led negotiations with Israel in the wake of his support for Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize after shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. Arafat returned to Gaza in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords and presided over the Palestinian Authority from West Bank headquarters in Ramallah and an office in Gaza. In the fall of 2000 he launched the al-Aqsa intifada following the failed Camp David summit earlier that summer. Trapped inside his Ramallah fortress following Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield, Arafat ultimately ceded his post to Mahmoud Abbas (the PA president at the time of this book’s writing) in 2003. Arafat died in 2004, ostensibly from natural causes.
Yehiya Ayyash A West Bank native and Hamas military commander who became the organization’s first “engineer,” or bomb-builder, and developed inexpensive and highly lethal explosive vests and devices used in the first campaign of suicide bombings against Israel (1994 to 1996). Ayyash was killed by a booby-trapped exploding telephone in Gaza in January 1996; Israel has never taken responsibility for his death.
Marwan Barghouti Fatah operative and founder of the Fatah Tanzim, Barghouti was apprehended by Israeli special operations units in 2002.
Dr. George Habash The Greek Orthodox founder of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Habash introduced terrorist hijackings into the international vernacular.
Mahmoud Abu Hanoud Hamas military commander in the West Bank who, in August 2000, was the target of a failed Duvdevan raid that resulted in three soldiers killed from friendly fire. He was killed in November 2001 by a helicopter strike.
Khaled Mashal Hamas political leader who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Amman, Jordan, in 1997.
Saleh Jaradat Jenin PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) leader in Jenin, killed during a Ya’mas arrest operation in 2003.
Salah Shehada One of the founders of the Hamas military wing, Salah was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza in 2003.
Ramadan Abdallah Shalah A former University of South Florida (Tampa) professor and the commander of the Damascus-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Ahmed Yassin The quadriplegic founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, killed in an Israeli air raid in 2004.