Inside the War on Hamas

Nevertheless, only one suicide bomber needs to slip into Israel to wreak carnage on the country's streets. Israeli intelligence officials say Hamas still has the ability to regenerate and deploy new cells faster than Israeli forces can uncover them. That explains, an official says, how two suicide bombers from the same cell in Ramallah managed to hit their targets last week.

The soldiers of the Nahal Brigade are aware of just how elusive the enemy can be. In the past three months, the reconnaissance unit has conducted 72 separate operations against terrorist targets. The group is getting faster with each mission. Immediately after receiving the midnight order to pursue the suspect in Nablus, Dan and his lieutenants began planning the raid, phoning nearby units to ask for extra vehicles, grenades and infrared light sticks to operate in the darkness. In a Spartan classroom at the Beit Lid base that functions as the unit's command center, Dan showed his troops magnified aerial images of Nablus' Old City, pointing out the target house and identifying positions for each soldier to take up on arrival. At 2 a.m., the unit piled into four armored buses and headed to Nablus to execute the strike.

While the rest of his unit unloaded its gear on the outskirts of the city, Dan went to the Tal Ara base, a rocky military outpost overlooking the city, to make a final check of the target's coordinates. Then Dan rejoined his men and gave them a pep talk. In speeches like these, he addresses his troops as "lions." Based on the accounts of the soldiers after the operation, Dan and his unit moved into the casbah at 2:30, using their preferred mode of transport — their feet. "You have to walk very, very carefully," he says. In groups of two to four, the unit slowly picked its way through the winding, narrow streets of the casbah, somehow managing not to arouse anyone inside the darkened houses along the route.

After two hours of walking, Dan and his men reached the edge of the suspect's compound. But then the unit's well-rehearsed plan went awry. One team spotted a man running from the house and sprinted after him, only to lose sight of the figure. Seconds later, another man dashed into the darkness; a soldier gave chase and fired a warning shot in the air, but the man disappeared. Sensing that the unit's cover was now blown, Dan ordered one team to blow open the door to the house and begin clearing it. Speaking in Arabic and using a megaphone, Dan instructed any civilians inside to come out. About 10 women and children emerged from the building. Almost immediately, Kalashnikov fire erupted from several surrounding buildings, including the roof of a nearby school. The troops called for backup vehicles and returned fire but failed to quell the shooting. One soldier was hit in the back; the bullet went through his ceramic vest, ripping his shirt but failing to pierce the skin. The unit's bloodhound wasn't so lucky: it had to be evacuated after taking a bullet in the leg.

After an hour-long fire fight, Dan managed to load his men into the backup vehicles and speed out of the city. It was already morning, and the unit's exhaustion was compounded by the realization that the targeted suspects had got away. At 9 a.m., the convoy pulled into the base at Beit Lid. The soldiers stumbled to their barracks to sleep; after they awoke, they would spend hours reviewing how the operation went wrong. By the afternoon, Dan had moved on. "You don't always get your target. It happens," he says, dripping with sweat from a three-mile run. Then he went inside to cool off and wait for the next night's mission.