Alei Zait became a symbol of the type of operation the IDF became famous for in the years to come: storied for its chutzpah, characterized by its lightning speed and the simultaneity of its attacks from differing directions and means (sea, air, and land); and unusually economical in its achievement of maximum results with minimal casualties.
The raid, conducted on the night of 11-12 December 1955, consisted of three cohorts: an airborne radio relay flying southeast over the northern half of the Kinnereth, four landing crafts, led by Yitzhak Ben-Menachem (called "Gulliver" by the men in the unit because of his great size) and followed closely by Sharon, and terrestrial forces at the north and south of the sea, led by Marcel Tobias and Meir Har-Zion, among others. The land forces were fortified by 120MM mortars in the south and cannon in the north.
Fourteen Syrian strongholds dotted the northeastern shore of the Galilee; of these, nine lay directly along the shore. All nine were attacked and the operation was considered highly successful. Sorrow for the men and for Sharon especially lay at the end of the operation, however. Gulliver, who had fought with Sharon at the Battle of Latrun and was a childhood friend of Arik's, was killed by a grenade while disembarking from his landing craft. Sharon made the decision to tell his parents the next day:
"When I arrived at the house, his parents had just gotten the terrible news a few moments earlier. While I talked to them, his mother cried continuously. "Arik, how did you let him die? You remember how he saved your life. You remember how he loved you. How he stayed behind and saved the wounded." In her grief she was talking about the Battle of Latrun in 1948, when Gulliver had heroically stayed behind with a machine gun covering Asher Levy's retreat with the Second Platoon. It hadn't been my platoon, but that didn't matter...now I had let him die. As she talked, she looked at me not with anger but with her eys full of anguish and disbelief. It was a look I would never forget."
Source: Sharon, Ariel, and Chanoff, David. Warrior: an Autobiography. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001.
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