First Sergeant Erez Halfon from Tel Aviv finished his IDF service on Sunday, but in three weeks he will once again put on his uniform - not to serve in reserve duty, but to receive the Head of Regional Command (Aluf) Citation for his outstanding performance during Operation Protective Edge.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



During the war in Gaza last summer, the Golani Brigade was sent to the Saja'iyya neighborhood. The Egoz unit, in which Halfon served as an army medic, was entrusted with taking over targets that were considered "strategic."

First Sergeant Erez Halfon and Egoz unit commander 'Y' (Photo: IDF Spokesman)

The battle for which Halfon earned his citation happened on the night between the 19th and 20th of July.

"We went on a mission late at night. One of the teams got near the structure and then two powerful bombs went off," Halfon recounted. Sixteen soldiers were wounded.

Halfon's team was called to the scene from another structure. "I got there and saw a man lying on the ground and two guys treating him. I tried to aid them and then I heard yelling from a different direction: 'Medic! Medic!' I immediately realized I needed to run and take care of him," he said.

Halfon left the first wounded soldier to his comrades and ran to the other wounded soldier. "I thought this was the company commander's signal operator. I saw a soldier lying on the ground in need of immediate treatment," he said.

First Sergeant Oz Karni, a soldier from Halfon's team who was wounded in his eye from the explosion, pulled out a pair of scissors and started cutting the wounded soldier's uniforms, which revealed that the soldier had a piece of shrapnel lodged under his neck.

"I saw the blood shooting out through the shrapnel's entry hole and realized that if I didn't take care of it urgently, there's an immediate risk to his life," Halfon said.

Erez Halfon was an army medic in Operation Protective Edge (Photo: IDF Spokesman)

He decided to create a pressure point - press the artery to the bone with his hand and block the blood flow. Doctors later said that had Halfon arrived a minute later - the soldier would not have survived.

Despite the sounds of explosions all around him, Halfon did not leave the wounded soldier's side.

Other troops lifted the wounded soldier onto a gurney and into a Namer armored personnel carrier (APC). They then sped towards the IDF's gathering areas outside the Strip.

Throughout the entire ride, Halfon was pressing the commando unit's commander's wound with his hand. "It was only when I was in the vehicle that I realized this was my commander, lieutenant colonel Y. For me it didn't matter whether it was a soldier I didn't know or the commander of the unit - every IDF soldier will get the best care," he said.

After crossing back into Israeli territory, the Egoz unit commander was transferred to another vehicle and from there onto a helicopter that rushed him to the hospital.

"Until we got him to the helicopter, I was the only one putting pressure on the artery. It was a drive that took an hour and felt like an eternity. Despite the shaking and the bumps on the road I never let go. After the incident had ended, I went to help other wounded soldiers," Halfon said.

Halfon doesn't think he did something heroic. "I did what was expected of me as a combat soldier and a medic, not something heroic," he claimed.

A week and a half after the incident, the unit's commander came to speak to the soldiers on the Gaza border. "He came to motivate the soldiers and encourage them. He thanked me, shook my hand and hugged me tightly," Halfon said. "I really don't feel like the commander owes me anything, in any way. He's still my commander and whatever he tells me to do - I will do."

It was Lt.-Col. Y. that told Halfon about the decision to honor him with a citation.

"I was on my pre-release break, the commander called me and said: 'Erez, congratulations, you deserve a citation.' For me it was a happy day, but also sad: I lost two of my friends there - Staff Sgt. Tal Yifrach and Staff Sgt. Yuval Dagan," Halfon said.

The Egoz unit will also receive a citation for its performance in the fighting in Saja'iyya. "This citation symbolizes the performance of the entire Golani Brigade during the operation," Givati commander Col. Rasan Alian said. "It was difficult and intensive fighting, and the Egoz unit had one of the most complex missions and got a lot of terrorists. Most of its firefights were face-to-face battles with terrorists, and the unit deserves this honor."