In the Air Force, they began to summarize the events of the surprise attack that opened the war in Gaza, and it turns out that the fog of war accompanied not only the fighters on the ground in the first hours of Black Saturday but also the aircrews that were scrambled to the skies of the western Negev.

The first pair of combat helicopters, which were on immediate standby for the Gaza division, reached the envelope about an hour or more after the start of the events, around 7:30-8:00, from Ramat David camp in the north. This was despite the fact that the home squadrons of the Apache helicopters are located at the closer Ramon camp to the Strip. In Ramon, they quickly understood that something extraordinary was unfolding and raised, with the commander of Squadron 190 himself, a combat helicopter that arrived at the envelope at 8:32.

After the pilots realized that there was immense difficulty distinguishing within the outposts and the settlements that were conquered, who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or a civilian, it was decided that the first task of the combat helicopters and the armed drones was to stop the flow of terrorists and the murderous mob that poured into Israeli territory through the breaches in the fence. Throughout the day of fighting, 28 combat helicopters fired all their ammunition, in rounds of rearming. This involves hundreds of 30mm cannon shells (each shell has a shrapnel effect) as well as Hellfire missiles. The initial firing rate against thousands of terrorists was tremendous, and only at a certain stage did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select their targets.

Hamas’s army, it turns out, intentionally made it difficult for helicopter pilots and drone operators: in the investigation, it was revealed that the invading forces were asked in the last briefings to walk slowly into and within the settlements and outposts, and in no case to run, to make the pilots think they were Israelis. This deception worked for a significant amount of time until the Apache pilots understood that they had to disregard all the restrictions. Only around 9:00 did some of them, on their own initiative, start strafing the terrorists with the cannons, without approvals from higher-ups.

The air activity on the first day was not organized, but even in the sky, the pilots improvised solutions to the complex and unprecedented situation: much of the gunfire aiming and target acquisition from the forces fighting on the ground came to the pilots via phone calls or sending pictures on WhatsApp. Against the backdrop of the tremendous number of the slain and the abducted, the Air Force is convinced that without the fire support and the many attacks carried out by IDF combat helicopters on that day - the killing would have been much greater.

Another step that helped the Air Force commanders to understand the seriousness of the event occurred around 10:00 in the morning, after the commander of Squadron 190 descended from his helicopter in Ramon to rearm and refuel. He unloaded the full film strip recorded by the helicopter’s camera and quickly broadcast it to the Air Force headquarters in the Kirya. Within less than 20 minutes, he was back in the air, and using the information obtained, he directed the rest of the air fighters to shoot at everything they saw in the fence area, and at some point, he also attacked an IDF outpost with trapped soldiers to help the commandos of Flotilla 13 to storm it and release it.

In one case, as part of taking upon himself the removal of restrictions, he fired at a range of only 20 meters from the houses of one of the kibbutzim to cover for the deputy commander of Division 80, who was parachuted from the Sinai sector and killed four terrorists in a tough battle. According to the Air Force, in the first four hours of the fighting, helicopters and fighter planes attacked about 300 targets, most of them in Israeli territory.

On the ninth day of the war (Sunday), the Air Force Command focused on eliminating senior Hamas figures in parallel with preparing a massive part for a ground invasion. The Air Force did not address the possible dilemma of attacking targets where the Hamas leadership - such as Mohammed Deif or Yahya Sinwar - is hiding when Israeli abductees are beside them as human shields.

The Air Force is working to create a new barrier between Israel and the Strip, up to three kilometers wide, and to encourage the Gazans to move southward towards the heavy disturbance that will be imposed on the city and the northern towns. The operational idea that the Air Force is now working on is “the destruction of military, mobility, and governance capabilities of terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip that threaten Israel”. The pilots were instructed to act with composure and professionalism, with operational and intelligence logic behind each of the thousands of attacks carried out so far.

Now, as mentioned, the air effort is invested in Gaza, but with high readiness for the days of battle that are already underway in the north. In the IDF, it is explained that the Air Force is trained and equipped to deal with two fronts simultaneously, but the preference is to focus on one main front. For example, the Air Force does not automatically attack every Hezbollah rocket launcher that fires a missile towards Israeli drones.

Meanwhile, the IDF identifies a large effort by Iran to move advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to foreign publications, it was the Air Force that attacked the Syrian airports in Aleppo and Damascus in recent days, disabling them, as well as large weapon convoys on their way to Lebanon.

The Air Force commander, Major General Tomer Bar, referred to the events of the first day and said: “There are many stories of heroism of fighters on the ground. The pilots killed many terrorists and helicopters brought fighters to the battlefield while dealing with fire towards them. We are proud of them and of the reservists who prove the power of the IDF and the Air Force. We investigate every day, and improve every day.”

Regarding a possible ground invasion, he said: “We are preparing the arena for as effective a maneuver as possible and removing as many threats from the ground and air as possible to give the fighters operational freedom of action. We are currently focusing on the southern front but are in high readiness for any development that may also be in the north.”