The Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel's Undercover War Against Suicide Terrorism

This book was awesome. It primarily featured Yamas as the go-to counter terror (CT) direct action (DA) unit of the IDF, so I have to say I felt a little slighted there, but it did give credence to Duvdevan and a few other units named. A friend of mine from my unit first turned me on to the book after finding it on Amazon. At first I was skeptical, having served in the IDF in one of these units. After performing in these capacities, my reference point was a little different than the average reader of this book. I honestly I thought this was going to be another political science 10,000 foot view of the IDF counter terror policy and targeted assassinations. I was wrong. This book was an extremely detailed account of ground level gunfights we participated in over the last 25 years. This book was motivating and inspiring. The IDF is a tight-knit organization and people know each other. There are living legends and characters that make names for themselves in the field and then go on to be great leaders of generations of warriors to come. That is how you are judged in the IDF, by your work in the field, like Sparta. I was amazed at how the author got access to information that was at one point coveted as top secret tradecraft and had in-depth accounts of missions. He clearly had personal knowledge and friendships within the IDF and police. Some of his accounts were so detailed I was able to draw from my experience and picture the events taking place as if I was there. Some of the mission profiles he describes in the book took place during my tenure and I knew of the mission even though it was our sister unit Yamas and not us (like the Itamar attack). Katz does a great job of telling the story of the three Yamas units in their geographic locations, founding, and mission sets. Duvdevan, Yamas, and Yamam are the three units spoken about in the book, but only Yamas is given a detailed account of characters and missions. While these units are very similar, there are some differences worth noting. Most obviously, Duvdevan is part of the IDF while the other two are part of the police (although the IDF and police can operate in some cases interchangeably). The Yamam is the national hostage rescue unit of Israel and is comprised of a small group of men who are drafted specifically to that unit after service in a unit like Yamas or Duvdevan or other front line combat. The Yamam is indisputably the most selective unit in Israel, has the hardest selection, and holds its members to the highest standards. Yamas is a unit to which one can get selected and serve in their first three years of service. There are three Yamas branches covering different geographies of Israel. This makes for mastery of operational areas. Yamas has a limited mission set of counter terror and direct action almost exclusively, while Duvdevan can perform a wider variety of missions and has a much more generous budget than the two police units. Training in the three units is very similar, so there are some missions in which each unit could perform almost equally and some in which one unit will have an advantage, like hostage rescue, for example, or undercover work in Gaza. The book details much of this and made me appreciate the operational tempo of the Yamas when compared to other units internationally and the experience that can be gained in such a short period of service. What most don’t know is that one’s military service experience in the IDF is highly dependent on the political climate. Up until 2008 these units along with many others not mentioned in the book gained a lot of operational experience with back-to-back missions and constant objectives. Since that period there has been a period of calm in which a mission only the Yamam would get today, every Palsar was participating in 6 years ago. When the next wave of violence comes, the new generation will have plenty of work to do. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking of joining the IDF or anyone wanting to understand the type of warrior the IDF produces. This book did a great job of demystifying some aspects of IDF CT/DA units. Gunfighters on the highest level.

The Ghost Warriors is a remarkable book—remarkable by the insight that it provides into how Israel has dealt with terrorism for decades and remarkable in its nail-biting detail bringing the reader up-close-and-personal into the trenches of operations deep behind terrorist lines. Most of all, considering the West’s current struggle against ISIS, The Ghost Warriors is a remarkable book in its timeliness—this is a book that describes how a Western democracy can not only absorb a full-scale fanatical terrorist offensive, but defeat it, as well. The key to this effort is guile, tactical force, and a small cadre of men who can infiltrate terrorist-held strongholds using every trick in the book. The Ghost Warriors profiles Israel’s undercover units—commandos who speak Arabic and can masquerade themselves off as local Palestinians in order to move about Palestinian areas unnoticed allowing them to get up close and personal to the men they target. It’s dangerous work, work requiring a spy’s patience, and a detective’s sixth sense, tactical prowess and most of all huge COJONES. The undercover units featured in the book are known as the Ya’mas and belong to the para-military arm of the Israel National Police. The book follows the men, and some amazing characters worthy of a full-fledged Hollywood-treatment, from the three police units—one responsible for the West Bank, one responsible for Jerusalem, and one responsible for the Gaza Strip—that fought back an endless onslaught of suicide bombers during the al-Aqsa intifada. Over 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed in this war, a remarkable number considering that Israel’s population consists of only seven million people. Tens of thousands more could have been killed; as the book points out in painstaking detail, Israel thwarted over 90% of the planned Palestinian attacks (most of the attacks were thwarted by the undercover units in daring operations). Many of the Ya'mas operators are Druze, Bedouins, and other members of Israel's minorities, individuals who speak fluent Arabic. Other members of the units come from all elements of Israeli society. These operators are trained to understand the enemy's mindset, language, and religion. The book, the author points out, underwent an Israeli security review. Still, the intimate detail in how these units operate is unprecedented. The battle descriptions are dramatic. This book should be mandatory reading by every federal task force and law enforcement agency involved in combating terrorism; this book should be part of the manual of all Special Forces personnel involved in the Global War on Terror. Ed d'Alessandro NYPD Emergency Service Unit retired [...]

Factual eye-opening account of Israel’s years long struggles to to defend itself during Hamas’ and Palestine’s to destroy Israel. Well written narrative, that keep the reader’s attention.

Ghost Warriors by Samuel Katz is a unique and fascinating look into the elite undercover counter terrorism unit of Israel's border guard the Yamas. Throughout his novel Katz successfully petitions the Yamas as one of if not the most successful Israeli counter terrorist unit in dealing with terrorism in and surrounding Israel. In contrast to some of its Israeli counterparts, the Yamas is presented as a precise scalpel that can quickly and efficiently deal with high level terrorist targets. Its undercover operations, similar in some ways to the IDF's Duvdevan unit,are ambitious, ballsy, and are often launched with minimal backup into areas controlled by deadly terrorist groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Al Asqa Martyrs Brigade. The book is focused on each of the three Yamas units located in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza, and provides insight into their history, development, and their most important operations focusing on the hunt for high value terrorist targets and the suicide bomber cells they control during the late 80s, 90s and the second intifada from 2000 to 2008. The book also indirectly helps to pinpoint how Israel uses its top tier counter terrorism units. Such prestigious units as the IDF's Sayeret Matkal, Sayeret Duvdevan, Shayetet (flotilla) 13, recon units Maglan and Egoz, as well as the Border Guards Yamam are all described as taking part in an unprecedented level of counter terrorism operations with each unit competing for assignments. The Yamas is also shown to have a very close working relationship with Israel domestic intelligence agency, The Shin Bet, whose remarkable intelligence capabilities provide the glue for which the house of Israeli counter terrorism is built and is an organization that is certainly more than worthy of a novel chronicling its own achievements. My only and minimal criticism is that the novel is clearly biased to the Israeli point of view which is to be accepted from an author who has written so much about count terrorism and Israel. Overall the book is fantastic, and includes much more nail biting accounts of action than other more academic works, or even thriller novels. The Yamas and Israeli special forces in general are clearly some of the best in the world at what they do, and The United States and their allies could learn much about counter terrorism and undercover operations from their Israeli counterparts. Having studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in college this book offers remarkably insight into how Israel deals with terrorism by going beyond its security wall to preemptively engage terrorist targets. I highly recommend this work for anyone studying counter terrorism, special operations, modern Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For more on Israeli Special forces and undercover units I recommend Aaron Cohen's excellent account of his own experiences in the IDF's Sayeret Duvdevan: Brotherhood of Warriors .

Fantastic book, so interesting it was hard to put down. I admit I have a real fondness for the whole mista'aravim thing. Aaron Cohen's book on Duvdevan inspired me to sign back up for Krav Maga after having been out for 3 years. Though knee injuries have permanently ended my Krav career, I was still tempted to go back. This was an awesome documentary on each of the three Yamas units, with significant amounts of material on Duvdevan, Shimshon, and Gidonim included as well. The whole thing was very well detailed, backed by testimonies of the participants, and provided an excellent overall unit history of each of the three. I would say the core thesis is that the Yamas constitute the most effective counterterrorist forces in Israel, rivaling or exceeding those anywhere else in the world, because of 1) their mista'aravim infiltration capability (shared by Duvdevan and Gidonim) and 2) their experience level as professionals instead of draftees (NOT shared by Duvdevan and Gidonim). A significant contribution is also made by their superior Arabic capability, a combination of the use of native Arabic speakers and much greater experience for the non-native Arabic speakers. What would I have liked to see that was not included? Mostly details on the formal selection and training process (not counting the ad hoc selection and training of unit founders in the 1980s, which was included). Going forward, I would love it if Katz would do a similar book on the Yamam, with a particular focus on the pros and cons of their (as near as I can tell) lack of focus on mista'aravim despite being the premier CT unit. I say this because mista'aravim seems to have been so key to Yamas success. I also hope veterans of all three Yamas units will write memoirs, and those will make their way to English.

WOW👍 This is one og the books that one needs to read, to be able to understand the complexity of fighting terrorism and terrorists. As usual from this author, it is just simply top-notch. I am in awe of hos level of detail and insight, and also his sources. This is so good it should be on university reading lists for subjects dealing with terrorism, international security, military subjects, and so on. Don’t take my word, buy it yourself and be amazed👌

An informative read well researched, but east to read with the right balance between information and descriptions of the missions

Samuel M. Katz may have pulled off the impossible in Ghost Warriors. Not to sound crass but in a book on a special ops type counter-terrorism unit, I guess I’ve developed a bit of a Rambo syndrome in that I know some terrorists are going to be killed. So what exactly is supposed to differentiate the Israeli unit from any other counter-terrorism unit on the planet, other than the fact that terrorism in Israel is a daily fact of life? Here’s where the impossible comes into play. The Ghost Warriors made me care about what happens to these men—men who leave their families and never know whether when they kiss them goodbye in the morning will be the last time because of the violent nature of their job. Several times I even ended up a little bit misty and not just for the Israeli side either, but those Palestinians left behind after their loved ones journeyed to martyrdom or whatever they call it these days. It’s very hard to get beyond this jaded, cynical coldness in books on terrorism that sets in after you’ve read as many as I have, but somehow Ghost Warriors made me think about counter-terror on a deeper level than before.

An excellent book that gives the reader or a greater appreciation of the continuing war on terrorism waged in this part of the world. As an ex- Royal Marine Commando who served three tours in Belfast at a period of time that later came to be classed as "the worst of the troubles" I have an appreciation in part just the problems and issues the Ya'mas of the I.D.F. have had to face and are still facing. For me at least my time in Belfast came to an end and I could return to the "mainland" and relative peace and security. Such cannot be said for the Israeli population and the security forces such as Ya'mas and other IDF forces who have to deal with terrorist threats and actions on a daily basis. For me I consider there is a vital lesson to be learnt here that unless our politicians get to grips with the much claimed unfettered immigration issue, then we too may find ourselves with a similar situation as those who face such as portrayed in "The Ghost Worriors" book. The difference however is will we have the infrastructure, the security services or the knowledge that over the decades of fighting the terrorists that the Israeli Security Services have built up since gaining their nations independence in 1948? I recommend this book and hopefully it will give the reader cause for concern, as it did for me, regarding the likely possibility that the same circumstances and conditions will be within our nation in the very near future.

Great read very detailed and riveting. You almost felt like you were along some of the characters as they executed some of these daring operations.

A very nice book, proves what the silent soldiers (ghost warriors) can do for a nation. Recommended strongly for the Military History and Intelligence Enthusiasts .

A great and comprehensive report on anonymous heroes' fight for Israeli security while showing, on the other hand, how much corrupted and delusional have been Palestinian leaders and terrorists for keeping their people in a lost and endless war which only brings about pain to Israelis and themselves, while they claim to be fighting for freedom but using dirtiest possible means. While Israelis show their ability to learn from each and every painful experience, writing their security protocols with blood, tears and sweat, the Palestinians waste on money and talents in war they will never win just because their means and goals are wrong.

You cannot stop the reading when you start. I liked so much and now I understand better the reality in Israel.