An Iraqi military convoy in Mosul, November 2016. Photo: Mstyslav Chernov via Wikimedia Commons.

An Israeli reporter recently traveled to the Fertile Crescent and documented first-hand the ongoing battle between the Iraqi military and ISIS for control of the key northern city of Mosul.

Itai Anghel’s full film was aired on Tuesday by Channel 2’s “Uvda” program.

In a “war journal” published by Channel 2’s website, the reporter described accompanying Iraqi special forces troops into a war-torn neighborhood where ISIS fighters were still present.

“I must say that no one in my armored vehicle panicked in these moments,” Anghel said. “Also, when the loudspeakers on the streets and mosques began broadcasting messages from group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calling on ISIS fighters to go out and fight a war of jihad, the soldiers in the armored car were roused: ‘We will pursue you until death!’ [they shouted]. ISIS was firing. The windows of our armored vehicle were already riddled with three bullets and none of us could see who was shooting at us. Because they were either passing house to house through holes punched in walls to avoid exposure to the street or they were entering a tunnel network dug under Mosul over the past two and a half years.”

Despite the suffering they endured at the hands of ISIS since it took over Mosul in the summer of 2014, many of the city’s Sunni residents are not enthusiastic about coming under the control of the Iraqi government, which is heavily influenced by Shiite Iran, Anghel noted.

Iraq and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.

In recent years, Anghel has also traveled to Syria several times to report on the fighting there.