Just nine of more than 1,000 candidates completed the training required to join the Israel Border Police’s National Counterterrorism Unit, known as Yamam, the Israel Police said on Wednesday.
The nine graduates were certified as full-fledged operators at a ceremony at the unit’s base in central Israel on Tuesday. The candidates, all veterans of combat and special forces units, underwent a rigorous selection process before beginning the approximately nine-month course.
Training included counterterrorism, assault tactics, hostage rescue and other operational skills. Trainees also participate in covert and overt missions alongside veteran operators.
Yamam service members are required to operate at the forefront of Israel’s operational efforts against terrorism and to lead the operational response to terrorist incidents, hostage situations, and complex extreme events, the police said.
Accordingly, the training course is designed to prepare them to operate at the highest operational level, under pressure and in complex scenarios.
“Dear graduates, you are joining this unit tonight—with its achievements, with the memory of its fallen, and with the responsibility to continue their path,” Police Commissioner-General Dani Levy told the new Yamam members at the ceremony.
“You are the best fighters in the world,” he continued.
“The spirit and professionalism cultivated here prepare Yamam fighters for the most difficult missions—for moments when human lives depend on a single decision and a single precise action. Years are required for those moments. Years of preparation—for moments of decision,” he added.
Border Police Commander Maj. Gen. Barik Yitzhak was cited by the police as telling the graduates, “You chose, at a time when the security situation is turbulent and volatile, a special mission—one you are privileged to join after a long and arduous journey, preceded by an exceptionally rigorous selection process. But if you are standing here, apparently you cracked the code and proved yourselves the most deserving.”
He went on to say that since the Hamas-led invasion into the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, “the unit’s commanders and fighters redefined the concepts of courage and self-sacrifice.”
Yitzhak stated, “To a great extent, I find that you are the answer to the citizens of the State of Israel and to the entire world, to our strength, to our steadfastness in the face of unrelenting upheaval, and to everyone who has tried to undermine our security, our ground, and our stability.”
Nine out of 1,000 candidates “is a nice slogan to hear,” said Yamam Commander Brig. Gen. “A,” “but anyone who has not gone through your course cannot truly understand what it means.”
He continued, “It’s not the number; it’s what you went through.., We are proud of you. Not because you are nine, but because you became nine because you did not give up. We do not promise that the road will be easy—in fact, quite the opposite. You are not nine people who completed a course. You are nine fighters who proved to themselves, and to us, that you are ready to begin the real thing,” he continued.
Yamam is one of Israel’s elite special forces units. It is the force that carried out the successful rescue operation in June 2024, which freed four hostages from two separate locations in the central Gaza Strip—Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40.
The mission was codenamed “Operation Arnon,” after Yamam Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, who was killed in action during the operation.
