When the lead commander was injured, she realized that she was the commander in the field. Ilan, an operations officer of the 13th Battalion in Golani, managed the base's headquarters in Nahal Oz. About 100 terrorists infiltrated the base early in the morning under the guise of a missile attack. Ilan gathered the troops in a safe room and ran to the headquarters from which she conducted the battle. When she realized that the forces that would arrive to help were first assigned to the civilian kibbutzim, she called tanks into positions, called up helicopters and worked with them on locating shooting targets. After 4 hours of fighting, the terrorists surrounded the headquarters and managed to lob grenades into it, which exploded and caught fire. Ilan encouraged everyone to take a risk and try to escape; she ran with other soldiers to search in the thick smoke for the bathroom where she remembered that there was a window without bars. And so, 6 more soldiers managed to get out of the two windows and together they hid in the bushes and made contact with special rescue forces. About 70 soldiers were saved, thanks to the fighters and tank forces that defended them and the rescue forces that eliminated the remaining terrorists.