From The Hills of Hebron to The Desert

After four months standing guard in the city of our forefathers, Hebron, my time there has finally come to an end. My battalion of the Paratroopers brigade spent four tough months in this complicated city guarding, going on occasional arrests or other operations, and overall ensuring the quite of the city to the best of our ability. At the end, we handed the torch to the 932 battalion of the Nahal brigade and said “you’re next,” from now until the next few months any visitor will see green berets lined throughout the city, and no longer the red berets that symbolized our time there.

Now that we finished our time in Hebron, we are continuing on the schedule of the regular battalions. Four months guarding, four months training, and so on. We have now moved to a base in the northern Judaean desert called Nebi Musa, named after the prophet Moses. Nebi meaning נביא which means prophet, and Musa referring to Moses. This base isn’t awfully far from Jericho, and certainly not too far from the Dead Sea.

Despite its relative proximity to some major cities including even Jerusalem, the base is about a 10 minute drive from the closest main road route 1, and certainly feels as if we’re in the middle of the desert.

Unlike Hebron where guard duty happens all throughout the city, a training base requires a few people to guard, making sure no one enters the main gate who shouldn’t, and more importantly that no one breaks in from any direction. Specifically in this area there are a lot of Bedouins, and unfortunately many of them have a tendency of stealing from IDF bases and trying to break in. The news will show you countless stories of this happening. Therefore, as you can imagine, while standing in an empty desert, this is our main priority when guarding.

We moved to this base exactly one week ago, and I was a part of the first group to guard, from last Wednesday to this past Sunday. I spent many hours looking throughout the landscape of the desert, scanning the area for suspicious activity. Most times nothing will happen, and nothing did this past week, but as I’m swiveling my head and taking in the surroundings, I realize what hole I’ve come to.

Nebi Musa is a base situated in the desert, and certainly feels that way. The heat there is unbearable, having reached 103 degrees last week. This week as a heat wave is making it into the country, the forecast says it will get to 110 degrees this Thursday, but thankfully I will not be on base this week to experience this heat. Asides from the heat, throughout the day and night I noticed many desert animals wandering around including the herds of camels migrating from place to place. I’ve only seen camels at tourist destinations or side-of-the-road gas stations where an American pays an exaggerated price for a five minute ride. Now I saw herds of camels walking one after the other, a warm welcome to the desert if you ask me.

*Camels next to the shooting ranges for my base

This base will essentially be my home for the next few months, but less so than Hebron. Unlike Hebron where we resided there each week, this base will serve primarily just as a base, and not much more. We will spend many weeks on different bases, and other weeks in the fields. We will even spend all of September guarding near Ramallah, even though it technically falls in the middle of our four month training period. Asides from that, I personally will be back in America for a month starting in August, so I will miss even more time here. Despite this, Nebi Musa is our main base until November, and we are bound to spend significant time wandering this desert.

Why do camels blend in so well with their surroundings?

They use camel-flage

*Panoramic view of my base

*Sunrise in the direction of the Dead Sea