Battle of Wadi Saluki - The Battles in The North

The Battles in The North

The fighting in the north was formally not part of Operation Change of Direction 11 but were preparatory steps for its implementation. On the night of August 8, units belonging to the reserve brigade of the 366th Division ("Pillar of Fire" Formation), under the command of Brigadier General Erez Zuckerman, advanced northward and reached the Christian town of Marj’ayoun, 9 kilometers from the border. The Israeli forces initially did not encounter any resistance and there were no clashes inside the town. It appears that a secular leftist party (probably the SSNP) aligned to Hezbullah eventually offered some resistance. Fighting erupted outside Marj'ayoun and the nearby Shiite town of al-Khiyam. A supply convoy was hit by missiles. Israeli media reported that IDF forces began August 8, operating "in al-Khiam", from where a large number of rockets were being fired at northern Galilee.

The day after the Israeli Cabinet finally approved the advance towards the Litani.

On August 10, an Israeli tank belonging to the 366th Division got stuck near the Christian town of al-Qulay’ah, facing the Shi’ite town of al-Khiyam, on the other side of the valley. A column of tanks that came to its rescue were targeted by Hizbullah missiles. Several tanks took hits and seven soldiers were injured, four of them seriously.

The entire battalion got involved in the rescue mission, after which the battalion promptly returned to Israeli territory, ignoring orders to continue the advance towards Marj'ayoun. Apparently the battalion commander’s tank was left stranded in the town with only an APC to back him up. The brigade commander was therefore relieved of his command after the war. The unit became known after the war as "the brigade that ran away."

Another battalion commander from the same brigade was ordered into Lebanon to assist in the evacuation of the trapped units. He expressed his reservations about advancing in broad daylight and asked to be relieved of his command.

One of the tank crew members later wrote about his experience. The tank company was attacking al-Khiyam at nighttime, circling it and firing into the town when one of the tanks broke down. It had to be towed by a second tank back to Israel, approximately 7 kilometers away. The two tanks could only move by five kilometers an hour and failed to reach Israeli territory before dawn. Both tanks were hit by Kornet missiles that hit the tanks in exactly the same spot, the engine grille and both were penetrated. One of the crew members were killed. Both tanks started burning and were abandoned. The tank crews hid in a ditch before being evacuated by APC's more than an hour later.

Anthony Shadid reported that Hezbullah fighters claimed to have hit and damaged up to a dozen Israeli tanks outside al-Khiyam.

The Pillar of Fire Formation does not seem to have resumed offensive action for the duration of the war and never completed the missions assigned to it. A handful of Hizbullah fighters thus managed to stop an entire armored brigade outside the town the town of al-Khiyam. Uri Bar-Yosef described the two-day stand-off as "one of the most humiliating operations in the history of the Israel Defense Forces." A few months after the war Brig.-Gen. Erez Zuckerman told the IDF Chief of Staff "I have failed, and I resign."