A former Immanuel College pupil has revealed how he battled a Hezbollah terror cell metres from a United Nations “peacekeeper” base while serving with the IDF in Lebanon.
Yossi Levercoff, who is from Finchley in north London and made aliyah in 2011, was called up by his “Eagle” paratrooper brigade for the operation a mile beyond the Lebanese border last month.
On the second day of his brigade’s mission, which was to take over a Hezbollah stronghold, they received intelligence that a nearby company had found recently opened food and a warm hookah in a building, signs of terrorists hiding close by.
Astonishingly, the area of suspected terror activity – a collection of eight properties – “was situated right beneath a Unifil [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] watchtower. Just 100 feet from the UN compound”, he said.
Levercoff, 31, (not his real name) whose day-job is running an Amazon business, said: “We devised a strategy to flank and cover each house, moving forward with a team stationed on high ground. Team one secured the first multi-storey building without resistance. From the top floor, they provided cover for our team to advance to the next property.
“We sent a drone through the window and discovered that the entire building was rigged with explosives. The same was true for the next two buildings.”
They decided to wait for the other IDF teams across the street to make progress before moving around to the end of the line of buildings. With only three of the eight properties unchecked, they then brought in an armoured demolition truck and began dismantling one of the remaining structures, where they found a hatch leading underground.
Suddenly, two Hezbollah terrorists, one with an AK-47 and the other with a shotgun, emerged from between the last two buildings and opened fire in their direction.
Levercoff said: “Without hesitation, my friend in the team next door pulled out a hand grenade and lobbed it 30m, exploding close to them. We returned fire as they shot at us from behind a blue car. The heavy machine gunner to my right unleashed a barrage, and the sharpshooter next to him took down one of them with a shot between the eyes. The whole company searched every inch of the area until evening.”
Reflecting on the sequence of events, Levercoff said the key moment was the successful actions of the drone operator.
“I can’t begin to explain how lucky I am to be alive. We owe our lives to the sharpness of my comrade operating the drone. Had he not done his job properly, or if we lacked this technology – as we did when I first enlisted 13 years ago – there could have been dozens of fatalities that day.”
Levercoff said he found it hard to believe that his unit had found rigged houses and a terror tunnel right next to a major UN base. “It was astonishing – and deeply concerning – that these explosives were placed directly under the gaze of the UN watchtower. Unifil, whose mandate is to prevent Hezbollah from moving south of the Litani River, seemed unaware of the terrorist infrastructure being built right under their noses.”
Levercoff is a “lone soldier”, a member of the IDF with no family in Israel, and his 2011 aliyah was facilitated by Garin Tzabar, a programme that provides a support system for Israelis and diaspora Jews joining the IDF but who do not have parents in Israel.
Now a reservist, he served in the army full-time between 2011 and 2014, and was involved in operations in Gaza. Today he has a wife and 15-month-old son in Israel, as well as wider family. He said: “By sheer coincidence, my brother-in-law (my wife’s sister’s husband) and I are in the same paratrooper brigade.
“For the past year, my family had been anxious that the IDF would call me up for an operation in Lebanon.
“We all knew it was inevitable. If you had told me a day before October 7 last year about the events that would unfold in Israel, the more than 180 days of miluim (reserve duty) I would serve on the Lebanese and Syrian borders, and that I would eventually find myself fighting a war in Lebanon ,I would have called you crazy.
“Nevertheless, I got the call and immediately began taking care of personal affairs and emotionally preparing my family so everything would be in place for me to enter a warzone.”
After the operation, he said, he “felt immense relief to see my brother-in-law safe and sound. The weight of worry lifted as we reunited with our families. Our wives decided to move in together so that our wives can support each other while we’re away. It’s a small comfort in these challenging times.
“Yet, our respite is brief. We have already received word that we’ll be called up again in the next few days. The sense of duty is ever-present, and while there’s anxiety about what lies ahead, there’s also determination. We don’t know what the future holds, but we stand ready to face it.”