Col. Rassan Alian Photo: IDF Spokesperson

“I’m worried, but he’s brave,” Shirin Alian, the wife of Golani Mountain Brigade Commander, Col. Raslan Alian, told the Israeli Ma’ariv daily on Sunday.

Overnight Alian lost 13 of his fighters and sustained light to moderate wounds in fierce fighting in northern Gaza’s Shuja’iya area, a Hamas stronghold and the source of no less than 10 tunnels and some 140 rocket strikes against Israel.

“I have a lot of soldiers over there and I need to get back to them,” Alian told doctors at Beersheba’s Soroka Medica Center, according to Israel’s Ynet news site.

“My son asked me, ‘why did he (Raslan) go into Gaza?'”, Shirin said, and answered, “because he has to serve as an example.”

Alian called Shirin at 08:00 in the morning to tell her that he’d been “lightly wounded” in fighting, and she told her oldest son two hours later of his father’s injuries. The family, which lives in the town of Shfar’am, has three children, aged 10, 6, and 4.

Col. Alian didn’t tell his wife he was going into Gaza, but she already sensed it.

“My son was silent when I first told him,” she said, and when he asked why, replied that his father “had to serve as a personal example to his soldiers and officers, and that I was only praying for everyone’s safety.”