lines. Some tank crews sacrificed themselves rather than voluntarily give ground. Gradually, the fighting subsided. Dawn revealed that the Syrian 5th Infantry Division under the cover of darkness had at numerous points bridged the tank ditch and cleared corridors through the minefield belt. The situation of 188th AB was rendered even more hazardous by the presence in its rear of the Syrian 9th Infantry Division. It was decided to abandon the southern Golan. In the night, many artillery and logistic units had already withdrawn, some slipping through the columns of 9th ID, others being destroyed by them. Civilian Jewish settlements had been evacuated. The same now happened with most fortifications, except bunker complex 116. Ben-Shoham with his staff outflanked the Syrian penetration via a western route and reached the north. The 82nd TB company that had reinforced the center, commanded by Eli Geva, had the previous evening destroyed about thirty Syrian tanks. It now successfully crossed the axis of 9th ID to the north. Of the originally thirty-six tanks of 53rd TB, twelve remained. Eres hid them in the crater of Tel Faris, where a surveillance base was located. During the late evening of October 7, he would successfully break out to the west. The Syrian 5th ID subsequently occupied the plateau of the southern Golan. Ben-Shoham tried to maintain a foothold on the access roads by small groups of APCs manned by the 50th Paratrooper Battalion, but these were easily brushed aside. The Syrian 47th Armored Brigade advanced along the escarpment to the north, in the direction of the Bnot Yaacov Bridge. The 132nd Mechanised Infantry Brigade positioned itself east of El Al, on the road along the Jordan border, running to the south of Lake Tiberias. Israeli General Dan Lener in the late night activated the divisional headquarters of the 210th Ugda to take control over the sector between the lake and the Bnot Yaacov Bridge but he had no regular units to hold this line. For the moment, he could do little more than personally halt retreating troops and vehicles on the more southern Arik Bridge and send them over the River Jordan again. Israeli command feared that the Syrians would quickly exploit this situation by advancing into Galilee. Dayan in the morning of October 7 called Shalhevet Freier, the director-general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, to a meeting with Golda Meir to discuss the possible