One year has passed since Operation Protective Edge and Arutz Sheva spoke with Lt. Col. Aviram Ring this week, while overlooking the Gaza Strip, in a look back at last summer’s war. 

Today the IDF’s Reconnaissance Battalion Commander, Ring served last summer as the deputy commander of his battalion, leading a group of reserved forces in the northern frontier of Gaza.

He described the camaraderie of reserve soldiers, noting that while “we meet for training during the year,” the thing that really “gathers us together is friendship and the mission.”

Some soldiers in his unit who were traveling abroad last summer even immediately jumped on flights back to Israel when the war broke out, Ring recounted, attributing that sense of duty to “our spirit.”

“It’s a war so fear is there. It’s not normal…not mentally and not physically for the unit. But through friendship and understanding the mission and brotherhood, we all come together. It’s like closing the fingers into one fist.”‘

While rockets are still fired into southern Israel, Ring was positive “the situation today is better, better than a year before. You can see the statistics.”

More importantly, he added, “I think the feel of security of residents around the Gaza Strip is better.”