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In this episode, the fourth in a series marking two years since the Iron Swords War, Boris Gorelik hosts Ronen Abramov, a population officer and social cohesion officer in Battalion 419 of the Home Front Command. The episode is dedicated to the “silent people,” the soldiers and civilians who worked behind the scenes during the war. It focuses on the battalion’s activities in the Gaza envelope after the October 7 attack, the psychological coping with the atrocities, and the importance of resilience and social cohesion.
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The role of a population officer
According to Ronen Abramov, the role of the population officer was born from the understanding that the front had moved to the home front. Since the 1991 Gulf War, the enemy has understood that Israel’s soft underbelly is its civilian population. The Home Front Command was established to deal with this challenge, with the main goal being to maintain functional continuity. Unlike in the past, when civilians stayed in shelters for many weeks, today the goal is to allow the population to continue a certain routine even under fire.
Abramov explains that his role is to understand the population’s needs and mediate them to the military command. The needs change over time, and he gives an example of an incident where the main demand of civilians in shelters was an internet connection. He talks about his service during the Corona period, when the Home Front Command distributed food in Bnei Brak. The mission revealed the complexity of the population: every Hasidic sect has different rules, different kashrut requirements, and different sensitivities. The population officer must know these nuances to function effectively.
Battalion 419 on October 7
On the morning of October 7, Battalion 419 was called up to the south. Abramov says that the first mission was to secure the main roads to allow forces to reach strategic targets. After the area was cleared of terrorists, the battalion’s main mission began: searching the communities in the Gaza envelope for missing people and bodies.
He describes entering the communities, where the first thing the soldiers encountered was the smell of death. According to the battalion commander’s directive, every house that was searched and cleared was marked with spray paint with the number 419, which became a symbol of the battalion’s work. During the searches, the soldiers also collected ammunition and sensitive information from the homes of security personnel.
Abramov details the procedure for handling bodies. After a body was located, engineering forces were called in to rule out the possibility of booby traps. Afterward, personnel from the Military Rabbinate handled the body. The bodies were evacuated in two separate trucks: one to the Shura base, for Israeli citizens and foreign workers, and the other to the Sde Teiman base, for the bodies of terrorists. He notes that the condition of the bodies was very poor and made identification difficult.
Psychological coping and work in the disaster zones
Boris asks about the psychological coping with the atrocities. Abramov replies that the soldiers worked on “autopilot” and focused on the mission. However, he describes a process of becoming somewhat accustomed to the horror, such as the ability to distinguish between the smell of a human corpse and the smell of an animal carcass or spoiled meat.
Later, the missions expanded to searching the open areas, the Nova festival site, and the agricultural fields. At a certain point, personnel from the Israel Antiquities Authority also joined the efforts, using their archaeological sifting techniques to find human remains in houses that had been completely burned. He tells of the moment when the remains of Ruth Peretz were found inside a burned ambulance, and how he only understood the magnitude of the event the next day, when he saw her picture in the news.
Maintaining morale and the transition to routine
When the acute phase of the searches ended, the missions became a routine of security, patrols, and escorting civilian entities. Abramov explains that to maintain sanity and morale, it was important to create certainty through a fixed schedule. Another significant factor was performances by artists who came to the area. He talks about a performance by Eviatar Banai that provided the soldiers with a moment of catharsis and detachment.
Alongside this, there were talks with professionals about resilience and processing experiences. Abramov, in his role as a population officer, initiated “discussion circles” himself for event closure. He admits that the burnout was immense, and his personal breaking point came when the pressure from home increased. He notes the heavy price that reserve duty exacted from many soldiers: divorces, collapsed businesses, and “invisible” psychological wounds.
Social cohesion and drawing lessons
Today, in his role as a social cohesion officer, Abramov works to strengthen the bonds between soldiers. According to him, the army understands that today’s commander needs to be an embracing and inclusive figure, not one who operates solely by the power of authority. He argues that when a strong and cohesive community is created at the company level, the soldiers’ commitment to each other increases. He notes positively the fact that politics remained outside the army during the war.
In conclusion, he calls for unity among the people and to avoid returning to the internal conflicts that preceded October 7. He hopes that Israeli society will once again become as cohesive as the Jewish communities in the diaspora, and will know how to conduct arguments for the sake of heaven and not for the sake of quarreling.
The original episode, in Hebrew: 419 אנשי הדממה