On the morning of October 7, 2023, Elroi Mizaeki was not supposed to be a soldier in a battlefield. He was a 26-year-old former combat officer who was spending the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah with his wife, Moriah, at her parents’ home in Sderot. Then the sirens began. What followed would turn the streets of Sderot into a battlefield and force Mizaeki into one of the most desperate and chaotic battles of that day. Mizaeki had served as a combat officer in the IDF’s Multi-Dimensional Unit. When the attack began, he did what many Israelis did that morning: he understood that something extraordinary was happening and went toward the fighting. He took his personal handgun and made his way toward the Sderot police station, where police officers were already engaged in a life-and-death battle against Hamas terrorists who had entered the city. At first, like many people on the ground, he did not fully understand the scale or nature of the attack. The situation around the police station was chaotic. Gunfire was coming from different directions. An RPG struck the station. Eventually Mizaeki realized something even more disturbing: the terrorists were firing from inside the police station itself, through its windows. He began firing toward the station and quickly recognized another problem. Someone had to take control of the situation. Mizaeki approached the station commander and essentially offered himself as a soldier: give me orders and I will do what you tell me. It was an extraordinary moment because the normal chain of command was collapsing around them. The people fighting were trying to understand what was happening while simultaneously attempting to survive it. Then came the moment that would remain engraved in Mizaeki’s memory. He saw a wounded police officer crawling on the ground. He wanted to reach him, but the terrorists controlled the area and moving toward the wounded man was extremely dangerous. Mizaeki turned to the station commander and asked whether anyone was coming. Had someone called the Yamam counterterrorism unit? Had Magen David Adom been called?