Meir Har - Zion Meir Har - Zion ( ; born 1934 ) is a former Israeli military commando . As a key member of Unit 101 , he was highly praised by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan who described him as " the finest of our commando soldiers , the best soldier ever to emerge in the IDF " . Ariel Sharon described him as " the elite of the elite . " His three - year military career was ended by injuries sustained in battle . Youth . Born in 1934 in Herzliya , to second generation Sabra , Har - Zion and his father moved to Ein Harod in 1947 . In 1949 he was briefly detained by Syrian authorities together with his 13 - year - old sister , Shoshana , after being caught in Syrian territory east of Beit She ' an . In 1951 , two years later , they were both captured by a shepherd while on the Syrian side of the border . This time they were held prisoner in Damascus , and the two children were only released by the Syrian government after a month of negotiation by the UN and the governments of both countries , making international headlines . As the children of divorced parents , Meir and his younger sister Shoshana had developed a deep emotional bond with each other , and had become extremely close , often illegally crossing into neighbouring Arab countries together . During the 1950s around a dozen Israeli teenagers were killed attempting to illegally reach the ancient city of Petra , which is located 40 km inside Jordan . Such cross - border treks were considered a rite of passage for elite youth . The song " HaSela HaAdom " ( The Red Rock ) , which praised a group killed attempting the trek , was banned . At the age of 18 , Meir and his girlfriend managed to reach Petra at night , after three days of hiking , and crossing the Wadi Musa and climbing Mount Hor and bypassing an unpassable waterfall : they apparently slipped into the ancient city unnoticed , under the cover of darkness , before exploring the Nabatean palaces . This feat made them legendary figures amongst the Israeli youth of the time , for whom Petra had represented an impenetrable citadel . Unit 101 . In 1953 he was one of the founding members of Unit 101 . He took part in the unit ' s first operation at the end of August 1953 . Sixteen men with two jeeps , two command cars and a reconnaissance aircraft attacked the ' Azazme bedouin camps around the wells at al Auja . Their tents were burnt and anything attempting to reach the water was shot at . On the night of 14 – 15 October 1953 around 65 men from Unit 101 joined a larger IDF force in an attack on the village of Qibya . Har - Zion commanded one of three squads sent to ambush any reinforcements coming from Ni ' lin , Budrus , and Shuqba . In another night time attack , 18 – 19 December 1953 , two Unit 101 squads led by Har - Zion ambushed a car on the Bethlehem to Hebron road . A Lebanese - born doctor serving in the Arab Legion , Mansour Awad , was killed . The Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett was annoyed that he had not been informed about the attack beforehand . Three nights later Har - Zion led a four man squad on a 21 - kilometre march to the outskirts of Hebron where , they placed a bomb outside a house chosen at random . Two men and a pregnant women were killed . 890th Paratroop Battalion . The following year , 26 May 1954 , Har - Zion was amongst a ten - man squad from the newly formed 890th Paratroop Battalion , led by its commander Arik Sharon , which carried out a raid near Khirbet Jinba , south west of Hebron . Two National Guardsmen were killed in an ambush as well as two farmers and two camels . Sharett once again complained about not being informed and suspected that Minister of Defence Pinhas Lavon had not been consulted either . On 27 – 28 June 1954 Har - Zion was in a seven man squad led by Major Aharon Davidi that launched a surprise attack on an Arab Legion camp at Azzun , 13 km east of Qalqilya . Three Legionnaires were killed as well as a farmer , Rafi ' a Abdel Aziz Omar , who was stabbed to death by Har - Zion to prevent him raising the alarm . On their return to Israeli lines one of the team who had been wounded , Sergeant Yitzhak Jibli , was left behind . On discovering that Sergeant Jibli had been taken prisoner Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan approved a series hostage taking raids . On 31 July – 1 August 1954 Har - Zion led a group of ten raiders who attacked two policemen near Jenin , taking one of them prisoner . On their way back they killed a farmer watching his fields . On the 30 – 31 August 1954 Har - Zion took part in Operation Binyamin 2 . This operation was approved by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and was commanded by Ariel Sharon . The attackers were divided into four groups . The first attacked a school building in the village of Beit Liqya . The other three set ambushes for the expected arrival of reinforcements . Only Har - Zion ' s group were successful . They had strung a wire across the road with cans of petrol at each end . A car full of soldiers from the Arab Legion drove into the trap . Two were killed , one wounded and three taken prisoner . Jibli was released on 29 October 1954 . The Har - Zion Affair . In the middle of February 1955 Har - Zion ' s sister , Shoshana , along with her boyfriend Oded Wagmeister , both 18 , were captured , abused and murdered by Bedouins tribesmen from Wadi al Ghar while on an illegal cross - border hike across Jordanian territory . When he heard of her death , Har - Zion was inconsolable and vowed revenge . On March 4 , he and three ex - members of the 890th Battalion drove to the Armistice Line with Jordan . In Wadi al Ghar , 9 km from the border , they captured six bedouin from the Jahaleen and ' Azazme tribes . The prisoners were interrogated and five of them killed , four with knives and the fifth was shot . One of the dead was 16 years old . The sixth was sent back to his tribe to tell what happened . The men probably had nothing to do with the killing of Har - Zion ' s sister , and had merely belonged to the same tribes as the murderers . David Ben - Gurion told the cabinet that the Israelis did not know enough Arabic to understand what their prisoners were saying . Sharon wrote that it was " the kind of ritual revenge the Bedouins understood perfectly . But the repucussions of what Har - Zion had done were very 20th century . The Jordanians made a formal complaint to the UN . " On their return , Har - Zion and three of his companions , were held in custody for 20 days . They were released without charge , as a result of protection and stonewalling by them and their colleagues in the army , and soon rejoined their old unit . Sharett , who suspected that Dayan had advanced knowledge of the raid , and who deplored such actions , noted critically in his diary : " " The dark soul of the Bible has come alive among the sons of Nahalal and ' Ein Harod " " . End of career . Operation Jonathon , 11 – 12 September 1955 , was an attack by two paratroop companies on Khirbet al Rahwa police fort , on the Hebron – Beersheba road , in which over 20 Jordanian soldiers and policemen were killed . During the fighting Har - Zion was wounded in the throat and arm . His life was saved by an army doctor who performed a tracheotomy while still on the battlefield . His injuries left him unable to continue his army career . He was awarded Medal of Courage . He had attained the rank of Captain . 1967 and 1973 Wars . During the 1967 Six Day War , Har - Zion was called up as captain in the reserves , and despite the use of only one hand , took part alongside the paratroopers in the battle for the Old City of Jerusalem . In one important exploit in the battle , he killed a Jordanian sniper who had been holding up the Israel advance : after stalking the sniper across a roof - top , he killed him with hand - grenades . Har - Zion served again as a captain during the Yom Kippur War , on the Golan front , in which he fought deep inside Syrian territory and rescued injured soldiers behind enemy lines . Writing career . In 1969 he published his diaries which gave an account of his time as a paratrooper . Of one of the early attacks he wrote : He also gives an account of the killing of Rafia Abdul Aziz Omar : In 2005 , he was voted the 15th - greatest Israeli of all time , in a poll by the Israeli news website " Ynet " to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis . Current life . Currently , he lives in " Ahuzat Shoshana " , a farm built on land on a mountaintop above the Jordan Valley . The farm is named after his sister and her name is written on the gate to the farm . In 2005 , he published criticisms of his former colleague Ariel Sharon for his policy of disengagement from Gaza .