Night raid: Watching female IDF soldiers detain terror suspects in Bethlehem

There’s a narrow street near a mosque. The green light of the minaret is shining above us, but otherwise the sky is dark. It’s around 2:50 a.m. On the mosque, there is a white sign with black letters that reads “Salah Elddeen Mosque,” and in Arabic it says it was built in 1977.

On the road near the mosque are a dozen IDF soldiers walking briskly in the cold night air. It’s around nine degrees in the Aza neighborhood of Bethlehem.

This neighborhood was built on a refugee camp established here in 1950. Most of the 2,000 residents are descended from Arabs who fled Beit Jibrin in 1948. Today, it is also home to wanted suspects who have engaged in terrorism or who may be active in threats against Israel.

I went to this neighborhood on an all-night raid with the IDF’s Etzion Brigade, based in Gush Etzion, which is responsible for this sector. Today, the brigade includes forces from several IDF units. We had soldiers from the Tavor Battalion of the Search and Rescue Brigade and reservists from the 8208 Infantry Reserve Battalion.

Prior to the raid, the soldiers had briefings about their target, and before the operation commenced I spoke to several officers. One described how soldiers in this area frequently carry out raids and sweeps of areas such as Bethlehem or neighboring villages. They eliminate terrorists, search for weapons, and conduct arrests. For instance, the units went into the Dehaishe camp in Bethlehem in November.

The refugee camps in Bethlehem are the historic hearts of activism. This is where groups such as Hamas or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine recruit young activists, who then become hardened terrorists.

And it’s not just Hamas and the PFLP; many Fatah activists grew up in these camps and were once involved in fighting Israel in the 1980s or 1990s and later became officials in the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian movement is rooted in these camps, and conducting raids into them is necessary to keep terrorists in check. That is the way the IDF seems to see its mission these days in this area.

The officers say they haven’t seen an increase in terror lately, but throughout the West Bank the military’s tempo of operations has generally increased since Oct. 7.

In the northern West Bank, the clashes are more severe. The enemy in Jenin and Tulkarm has a large number of smuggled rifles. The IDF is also finding munitions and weapons in Bethlehem and the surrounding villages.

“If we didn’t operate every night, then we’d have a problem,” says one officer. The raids are conducted with regular soldiers and reservists, as well as members of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).

Night raid

For the deputy commander of one of the companies, a female combat soldier named R, this is an important mission. “We are doing this a couple of times a week, and usually it goes the same way,” she says.

Tonight, we will be going into a dense urban area with multi-story buildings, so it’s different than raiding a house in a village. Before the operation, the officers receive information on the site, such as how many families are expected to be in the building and the history of threats and terror in this area. The forces know they could expect to confront improvised explosive devices or Molotov cocktails thrown at their vehicles.

R says that it’s crucial for her troops to go in with a flexible mindset. They might not find the suspect at first; they might have to go door to door.

I got to this unit’s base around midnight, and slowly the officers emerged from a room where they had been briefed on tonight’s mission. Soldiers begin to arrive. Most of this company of soldiers of the Tavor Battalion are women. There are also some men with us, including the driver of the Panther armored vehicle we pack into.

It takes time to organize everyone. The commander, R, forms her troops into a circle. She says that tonight, there will be many forces operating in Bethlehem. She discusses what to do if soldiers are wounded or if we confront rioters who throw Molotov cocktails. There are many threats where we are going; she expects the soldiers to be alert and on their toes.

On the move

By 1 a.m., the convoy of vehicles begins to move. There are half a dozen lightly armored vehicles in this group. We drive out of Gush Etzion on the road that snakes around back toward Jerusalem, eventually arriving in Bethlehem from the north. 

There’s no one on the streets. It feels quiet and deserted. Bethlehem would usually be preparing for Christmas this time of year. However, due to the ongoing war in Gaza, the city has toned down its Christmas decorations, and there’s no festive spirit here. Tourists are gone and the cheer has turned somber.

Inside the vehicle, it’s relatively warm. We sit on a row of chairs facing each other. The soldiers have their helmets on and wait quietly with their rifles. They had been speaking in low whispers before, but now they are serious and ready. No one discusses the mission, and I feel a bit in the dark regarding what to expect. The vehicle has small windows with grates on the outside, so it’s hard to see where we are.

The convoy of vehicles stops on a main road that leads into Hebron. There is a large hotel here called the Heritage Hotel. There is also a bank and several small shops that advertise food and coffee. Everything is closed. We exit the vehicles quickly and move along the side of the road into an alley.

The alley has graffiti of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and recently assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Yassin was also eliminated in an IDF airstrike in 2004. These are the heroes of this area of Aza camp. The house we arrive at has a symbol of the PFLP spray-painted on it.

The soldiers bang loudly on a door. No one answers. They try to break down a gate that leads to an internal courtyard of a building. A staircase leads to a small apartment on the outside of the building, and the soldiers bang on this door as well. Finally, a middle-aged man emerges.

He goes downstairs and seems to direct the soldiers to return to the gate they were trying to open. They try to use an electric saw to break down the gate. Eventually, someone comes and opens it, and we fan out into the courtyard.

Soldiers go up the stairs and secure the area, coming to an apartment on the fourth floor. Outside the door, the residents had put up license plates from Florida and Ohio. The family may have visited these places in the past.

Inside the home, the soldiers say they are looking for a certain suspect. The house is small, and there is what looks like a plastic Christmas tree that must have been from last year; it doesn’t look new. A giant stuffed panda bear sits in front of it, wearing a shirt that says “You.”

After 10 minutes the soldiers exit the home, leaving a note telling the suspect to appear at some location. He’s out for the night. It’s time to try to find other wanted men. We go down the way we came and outside the gate that now has a cut at the bottom from the saw.

This is a relatively low-tech raid; the soldiers don’t have special riot gear. There’s just a dozen of us, and the soldiers all carry M-16s. Everyone tries to avoid areas where rocks might be thrown from above, hugging the walls as we maneuver in and around alleyways.

THE SECOND location to be searched appears to be adjacent to a new hotel called the Regina.

The soldiers go in, and some of us wait outside. Minutes go by, and it seems to be a while before a suspect is taken out, his hands tied with plastic zip-ties. Once he is taken back to the Panther vehicle we came in, we return to the same neighborhood.

This time, an alleyway leads to a fancy large metal door. The door stands in contrast to the relative poverty of this area. Once again, several soldiers disappear down an alley to search for a suspect in a home. There is banging on doors and some shouting.

No one in the neighborhood comes out to see what is going on. They must be used to these kinds of raids. They likely know that a confrontation with the forces won’t help them.

At some point, a suspect is brought out, and he sits on the ground next to us. He looks to be in his 30s and has a dark beard. Another suspect is taken out, and now there are two. One is coughing, and the other is shivering slightly from the cold. They are wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts. No one speaks.

Eventually, though, as time goes by, the soldiers whisper to one another. Each soldier is watching one alleyway for any movement. Nothing happens. A dog barks in the distance, and finally the forces all gather again and go back down the alley we came from.

It’s a bit of a warren of streets here, but we spill out onto the main road, where the Panther vehicle and the rest of the IDF jeeps are waiting. Now there are three suspects detained in the vehicle we came in.

IT’S TIME to find another one.

We walk down the street, and then around a corner and up a hill. There is a monument on one side of the street with a mural with Palestinian flags. Opposite the mural is the mosque named for Salah Elddeen. This is one way to spell the name of the Muslim leader who fought the Crusaders.

Perhaps they feel the name of this mosque is a way to signal that a modern Muslim leader will come and fight Israel. If the residents here think so, tonight there is no such leader.

The raid near the mosque is as complex as the original search. We go into one narrow alleyway, balconies of houses above us obscuring the sky, making it feel like a tunnel. The soldiers bang on a door and speak to a man who eventually opens it. The suspect isn’t here, but he lives around the back of the building.

We leave the tunnel, go back to the road where the mosque is, and take a left. This takes us by a shop that repairs cars and into another alley where there is an orange light that seems to be providing succor for a plant. I look closer. Is it a marijuana plant? Are they doing some kind of hydroponics up here? It doesn’t seem to be, but it’s unclear what they are growing.

There’s no more time for agricultural inspection because the forces have moved on now up the alley, around some stairs, and to an old metal gate framed with stones. It looks like the entrance to a secret garden. It takes two soldiers to break down the gate by kicking it.

Inside the small courtyard, I’m struck by the fact that everything has been painted blue. A mural on the wall shows a hand going through barbed wire and disintegrating. It’s haunting. What’s the message here? Is this a kindergarten or some kind of social club during the day? 

The soldiers go to the house at the end of the blue courtyard, and a young man emerges. He speaks English and complains that the man they seek is “too young to be in trouble.” The soldiers ignore his protests and go to another door, where they eventually enter an apartment and find the suspect.

This man seems to be in his late teens, and he is clad in a large khaki coat. Unlike the men with beards detained earlier, this young man seems like he doesn’t fit the mold of a terror suspect. 

He doesn’t say anything, but the other man continues to protest until the soldiers shout at him, and he goes home. It’s unclear what the men’s relationship is, but they seem to be family.

As we leave, the soldiers express concern that residents here might throw stones at them. There is some shouting from one of the adjacent buildings. We leave quickly and add this latest suspect to the collection. The soldiers refer to the suspects as “Johnny,” such that we have now acquired “another Johnny.”

Final raid

The last raid of the night takes place in the Aida camp. It’s another built-up area densely packed with residences. Here, too, the walls are covered with graffiti. This one includes a small swastika.

We come to a multi-story building and wake up one family. A man leads the soldiers to the third floor. A woman watches us from behind opaque glass, her red shirt visible in a kind of fog. The suspect isn’t home.

This is the end of the raid. We head back to the vehicles now with four suspects who have taken up the seats where I was sitting at the beginning of the raid. The soldiers have blindfolded the men. A short drive takes us to an area with numerous other IDF vehicles, all idling at night, corralled, and waiting for suspects to arrive.

We drop off the four men. One of them drops his ID, and the soldiers pick it up. Then we pile back into the Panther vehicle and begin the long drive back to the base.

A calm operation

One commander I spoke to characterizes this as “cutting the grass,” a term we’ve heard over the years for how the IDF manages the ongoing conflict in the West Bank. The soldiers are operating here 24/7, the officer says. They secure Highway 60, which leads from Gush Etzion and Hebron to Jerusalem. Thousands of Jews live in a dozen communities in the area.

The IDF says that the forces in this area are responsible for maintaining order in the area and preventing friction and problems between Arabs and Jews. 

The Etzion Brigade is here to conduct offensive operations. Different units, such as the Search and Rescue Brigade, rotate in and out of this sector. The IDF sees this evening’s raid as a success.

“During the operation, the forces made arrests of wanted individuals, interrogated dozens of suspects, and searched and found weapons and incitement materials,” the IDF says. No details about the suspects were provided.

For Deputy Company Commander R, this was a calm operation. She says this is usually the case. Operating at night means there are fewer civilians to deal with and fewer chances of clashes. 

The level of threat can depend on the area being searched, she notes. “We have intelligence of who we are looking for, who is in the house, who is in the family, and if they are violent.”

Deputy Commander R

R joined the army in 2021. She is a lone soldier from the eastern United States. She wanted to be a combat soldier. In recent years, she says, the IDF has opened numerous units to women combat soldiers, and she praises the fact that women recently passed tryouts to get into the elite 669 Rescue Unit and Sayeret Matkal.

R didn’t know what to expect when she joined, but she didn’t anticipate it would include the kind of raid we were on. “I didn’t expect I’d be entering people’s houses and taking them from their beds. I thought we’d be doing more rescues.” This is because the Search and Rescue Brigade is trained for what it sounds like – search and rescue.

R has risen quickly in the ranks. She went through basic training, and the IDF saw her potential for leadership. She went to officers’ school and became a platoon commander. R has been in the Etzion Brigade region for around half a year. Prior to that, she was in training with a company of soldiers. 

She describes how training as a group helped the soldiers build trust. “It takes time, though, to gain the trust of other soldiers. The most important thing is to be professional and keep soldiers alive.” 

She has lost friends in this war. “I never thought that would happen. That gives you perspective on what to waste your energy on and what to put it on. I feel I’ve matured. Every soldier feels this way currently. Everyone goes through this loss. 

“And that is what makes the country special. Eighteen-year-olds aren’t getting drunk but are doing real things.”

I asked about what kinds of threats her unit has faced. She says that each area is distinct. “There are cities like Bethlehem that are known for having guns or smuggling or throwing Molotov cocktails and other types of explosives, and IEDs, [which] they can plant in places.

“Then there are places like [the village of ] Husan, where we operate a lot. It’s known for Molotov cocktails, and the briefings are specific about the threats. One thing that is classic is throwing things from the roof such as blocks.”

During the raid, I was struck by how the interaction with the civilians was generally calm. It was tough but calm. Soldiers banged on doors and shouted when they needed to be clear, but there weren’t fights with the civilians.

“In your training, you get used to keeping a straight face and being serious when it’s time to work. You have to show a level of professionalism, and it comes naturally at a point,” the commander says.

She praises the role of women in combat in units like this. 

“I think it goes to show that women are more than capable of being great combat soldiers, and there are many successes that have come from the leadership of women from our unit.”

While 5% of combat soldiers in the IDF are women, most of the fighters in her unit are women. “To see it as such a norm is special, and I am happy to be one of them,” she states. 