head: to get as close to the building as possible, so his PIAT could per-form its task. And the PIAT did work. When it raised its voice, the rifles and the automatic weapons seemed to fall silent. Like in the jun-gle, where all the animals fall silent when the lion roars. It was less than fifty meters range. Elisha fired at will. Every shot a hit. We couldn’t see the holes in the wall. But the ground shook.
After that Elisha didn’t grumble any more. He was balanced, con-tent with the world, with the army, and most of all with his PIAT.
For a whole week we felt dejected. Every day we heard the news of the Egyptian advance toward Tel Aviv. We on the front knew what thepeo-pie in Tel Aviv did not know - that this invading army, with its tanks and aircraft, was faced by a defensive army of no more than one thou-sand lightly armed soldiers.
* * *
Between patrols we unloaded the first combat aircraft that our army had received. We loaded ammunition and equipment onto transport aircraft for the Old Town of Jerusalem where a desperate battle was tak-ingplace.
Before our eyes appeared that terrible monster: the tank. We knew that we would have to fight against it tomorrow or the next day. We were all terrified of it. We were told that everyone who knocked out a tank would get two weeks’ leave. And everyone developed their own method. Shalom Cohen wanted to jump on top of the armored vehicle and throw a hand grenade inside. Janek Levkovitz was of the opinion that the Molotov cocktail was the best method. We discussed this ques-tionfor hours. Underlying this was the bitter truth: we did not have suit-able weapons to engage the tanks that were descending on Tel Aviv, apart from Molotov cocktails and a few PIATs.
* * *
On the evening of 29 May came the red-haired Jerachmiel Fingermann, and called us to a meeting. Following the death ofMenachem Brotzki he had taken command of the platoon. For the first time we heard a com-prehensive summary of the situation. We sat there, appalled.
The enemy was dug in at Isdud, about thirty kilometers from Tel Aviv. Their vanguard had reached Yavne, about twenty kilometers from Tel Aviv, and it was possible that they had advanced even further. The Givati Brigade had received the order to stop them at all costs.