ISRAEL'S PARA-RESCUE COMMANDOS

Israel’s Unit 669 and the scars its members hide

One of the most critical needs supported by American Friends of Unit 669 is mental-health care and therapy, especially for post-traumatic stress disorder. 

 

Dr. Eric R. Mandel

 

JNS

Mar 5, 2025 

Members of Unit 669 on a search and rescue mission 

 

The key to saving soldiers’ lives in the field is to provide immediate attention to life-threatening injuries, followed by rapid evacuation to a tertiary care hospital. I learned this during my visits to Soroka Hospital, Israel’s tertiary-care hospital near the border with the Gaza Strip.

As a surgeon, I understand that minutes can mean the difference between life and death. For Israel and the Jewish people, saving every life is paramount. At Soroka, soldiers are alive, thanks to the risks taken and the expertise of Unit 669, a special-forces rescue and extraction unit of the Israel Defense Forces.

I had the privilege of interviewing Unit 669 members and hearing the stories of extraordinary rescues that took place almost daily without media attention because of the sensitivity of the missions in Israel’s fight for survival on seven fronts.

In quiet times, the demands and training require reserve soldiers of Unit 669 to train two months every year, a significant but necessary burden for these dedicated young men and women, including elite physicians, nurses and support staff. When not at war, 669 acts as a rescue unit for the nation—from ordinary accidents to terror attacks.

Guy is a unit member in his last year of medical school, going from combat missions in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon while participating in his hospital rotations to complete his medical degree. Unsurprisingly, he says, about 25% of Unit 669 veterans go on to medical school.

During six visits to the frontlines during this war, I routinely met with physicians, technology executives, accountants, lawyers and members of every occupation under the sun, who transitioned from home to war and back again, leaving families behind for months at a time. In Guy’s case, he is newly married.

His most harrowing rescue mission was in Georgia, in Eastern Europe, a week before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He was traveling with his family and eating at a restaurant when his father suffered from cardiac arrest. Guy resuscitated him then and there. He told me he could not find the words to express the tension of putting his skills to use on a family member, followed by a harrowing three-day extraction journey before bringing him back to Israel. His father’s case was anything but routine; seeking out and finding the correct medical follow-up in rural Georgia was nothing but a miracle.

Returning to Israel, exhausted and focused on his dad in the ICU, he received a call at 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 7 from his unit. Once updated on the situation, he went directly to Tel Nof airbase, 669’s base of operations, to be transported to the front. No helicopters were available to take his team in the first hours of the war, so he and his fellow soldiers drove a white pickup truck—eerily similar to the ones Hamas used in its assault on Jewish communities—to the Gaza Envelope communities, making them a potential target to be struck by IDF pilots and drones.

The team came upon an open field and a traffic jam (it was the site of the Nova music festival). They encountered a casualty scene beyond comprehension, beginning to triage the injured. Soon afterward, they were ordered to go to Nahal Oz, shifting into combat mode with another special forces unit to take back the kibbutz. They moved on to Kfar Aza and, throughout the following evening, extracted the injured from that kibbutz. Before sunrise, by then Oct. 8, they were sent to Kibbutz Be’eri, where combat continued working until noon. They joined another unit to act as a rapid combat force, extracting the injured in pickup trucks and Hummers.

Today, a year and a half later, the names of those kibbutzim are etched into our consciousness, like the roster of Nazi concentration camps, which brings a chill to anyone who knows the depravity of Hamas and their Palestinian collaborators.

When Unit 669 gets involved, it usually means that something has gone horribly wrong.

 

  

 

Guy told me that to survive during a mission, soldiers must go into “functional robot mode.”

At his father’s urging, he kept a diary of his experiences from the beginning of his military service, telling the story of Unit 669, which was anonymously published in Hebrew and became a bestseller in Israel. It led to a second book, The Rescue: October 7 through the Eyes of Israel’s Para-Rescue Commandos, translated from Hebrew into English by former Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy.

There are too many stories to tell, Guy said.

Most operations are covert and not released for publication. There is nothing, says Guy, that compares to the feeling of rescuing someone and getting them home safely. It’s hard for Americans, even those who are deeply connected to the Jewish state, to understand how small Israel is and how everyone is connected by only a degree of separation from another Israeli.

Open-source information has reported they have been intimately involved with hostage rescues in Gaza, as well as the most challenging special operations, including destroying Iranian facilities in Syria.

Because of the small nature of Unit 669—always in pressure-cooker situations—members must pass the IDF’s commander’s course. They must be leaders around the clock.

One of the most critical needs supported by the American Friends of Unit 669 is mental-health care and therapy, especially for post-traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers have seen the most unimaginable situations, including rescuing family members and fellow soldiers.

After this war, every IDF soldier is going to need help managing their living with PTSD. I know this firsthand, working with the Maglan special forces units for more than 10 years, and now, with Unit 669.