Breaking: Golani soldier killed in terror attack was shot at close range by friendly fire
Israel Radio reports that 22-year old Golani Brigade Staff Sergeant Moshe Naftali, who was killed in last Thursday's terror attack outside of Eilat, was shot at close range by friendly fire, and not by a sniper as previously believed.
Here's how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had described Moshe's death until now.
St-Sgt Moshe Naftali was killed in the first volley of gunfire when terrorists attacked his force while on their way to assist a civilian bus that was fired upon by terrorists. The terrorists exploded a roadside bomb at the patrol and opened fire on the troops as they exited the damaged cars. One of their bullets killed him. The commander of the Golani Reconnaissance unit eulogized Naftali: "Moshe was killed leading his troops heroically."Unfortunately, Moshe was accidentally killed by our own troops.
May his memory be blessed.
Labels: Eilat, Golani Brigade, Moshe Naftali
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:09 PM
2 Comments:
Very sad. If you watch videos of real action in these "battles" (e.g., Restrepo), it is completely and totally beyond me why this doesn't happen infinitely more often. All credit to our modern militaries that it isn't a daily occurrence.
War is not only hell, it is chaotic. So-called "friendly fire" deaths and woundings have always been and always will be a result of warfare. I've read estimates of up to 20% of Allied ground casualties in WW2 were "friendly fire". I think that figure is too high but I suspect that 5% or more is not an excessive estimate.
One incident was in 1943, when US Airborne forces flying in from N. Africa, overflew the US Navy fleet off Sicily at night, on the way to airdrop into Sicily. The fleet had been under German air attack most of the day and opened up, thinking them more German aircraft, shooting down 30-40 C-47s and killing hundreds of US paratroopers. In another WW2 incident, when US Army ground forces were starting the Normandy breakout from the "Falais gap" in summer 1944, a division of these Allied troops were inadvertently bombed by flights of US Army Air Force B-17s, killing over 300 US troops and wounding over 900.
In WW2, Korea and Vietnam, there were many times when Allied artillery, for various reasons due to "the fog of war", "friendly fire'd" our own troops. Even in the First and Second Gulf Wars and now in Iraq and Af-stan, incidents still have happened.
Western technological advances in recent decades, esp. in battlefield communications, have reduced this greatly. This is so much so, that when inevitable "friendly fire" incidents do happen, it's hard to remember that these tragic incidents are actually far less than even a generation ago.
Post a Comment
<< Home