yards ahead. The missiles seemed to be pointed north, away from them. But the

yards ahead. The missiles seemed to be pointed north, away from them. But the battalion commander was asking us for permission to open fire. “Do not open fire,” I was saying as Yanoush arrived. “I repeat: do not open fire.” When Yanoush asked me what was going on, I told him the lead unit had reported unknown vehicles with missiles and wanted to know whether it could attack. “Tell them yes,” Yanoush said. I looked first at him, then at Mitzna. “We can’t,” I said. “It’s dark. The situation is confused. We don’t know whose missiles these are. It doesn’t make sense they’d be Syrian, just sitting there, pointed north. At least give it a few minutes.” I think Yanoush would have grabbed the microphone and told the unit to fire had not Amram been there as well. Together, we convinced him to hold off. I ordered the brigade commander to get one of the battalion’s APC crews to go out on foot and get as near as possible to the missiles. It was nearly 15 minutes later when they returned. They said they’d never seen this kind of missile vehicle, but that the soldiers manning them seemed to be speaking Hebrew. It turned out to be a new ground-to- ground missile, not yet formally in service, which had been sent into Lebanon without our knowledge by the northern command. While that trouble was averted, much worse lay ahead. Yanoush asked to be brought up to date on our progress in taking control of the area around the Tovlano Triangle. We briefed him on the situation as we understood it: that Rifkind had reported the triangle was clear, but that the second brigade had still not reached it. Yanoush tried to radio the divisional commanders. When he couldn’t raise them, he ordered the brigade and battalion commanders to pick up their pace and move forward. With Yanoush back and the advance resumed, I tried to grab at least a few hours’ sleep. But around 3:45 am, a junior officer shook me awake. When I rejoined Yanoush and Amram, they told me the lead battalion was now in deep trouble. It was led by Ira Ephron, one of Dan Shomron’s best company commanders during the 1973 war. For reasons I’ve never been able to establish, Ira’s orders were not to take the hills south of the triangle as we’d planned, but to go through it to a point two miles or so north. Minutes after crossing the triangle, his tanks came under heavy fire. Hoping to escape, he kept going, only to find himself surrounded by a Syrian armored force. They were trapped near a village called Sultan Yacoub, nearly three miles north of Tovlano. Since it was early June, it would be light soon, and his predicament could only get worse. At dawn, he reported he was under heavy artillery, anti-tank missile, RPG and close-range rifle fire. The only realistic hope was to retreat. We were unable 200 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028048