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January 12, 2005
Father of five killed in Morag roadside bombing
MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Gideon Rivlin, 50, of Gush Katif, was killed and an IDF officer and two soldiers were wounded, when a powerful roadside bomb was detonated by Palestinians next to an IDF jeep patrolling the security fence near the hothouses in Morag in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning.
Additional forces deployed to the site shot and killed one of the men. Later an Air Force helicopter crew saw the second one hiding among the hothouses and he too was shot dead. Soldiers discovered six more bombs that had been placed by the two and later blew them up. The army did not rule out the possibility that more men were involved in the attack and succeeded in fleeing from the area.
Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack and said two of its members infiltrated the community after cutting through the security fence during the night. In a videotaped message released by the movement, a masked and armed spokesman declared that the attack was a message to Mahmoud Abbas, the newly elected Palestinian Authority chairman, that the armed resistance will continue.
The wounded soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. The condition of the officer, a deputy battalion commander in the Golani Brigade, was described as serious. The other two soldiers riding in the jeep were lightly wounded.
Hundreds attended Rivlin's funeral in the Gush Katif regional cemetery in Neveh Dekalim on Wednesday night. Much loved and respected by Gush Katif residents, Rivlin moved to the area 26 years ago with his wife, Simha. The two were among the founding families of the Ganei Tal settlement. Gideon is survived by his wife, four sons and a daughter.
Rivlin's son Nir told reporters that he heard of the attack as he was leaving Gush Katif. He immediately turned round and headed back to Morag, while attempting to call his father on the phone. "He didn't answer, which is unusual for him, and when I got there I waited for the wounded to be evacuated. He was not among them and then I realized," he said.
Eran Sternberg, the spokesman for the Gush Katif Regional Council, declared that the attack was the result of the policy of restraint dictated by the government as a gesture to the "messiah" Mahmoud Abbas. "We know for a fact that this morning we paid a bloody price because of that policy," he said.
A contractor and farmer, Rivlin was responsible for the construction of security fences surrounding the settlements in Gush Katif. He set out in the morning with the soldiers in the jeep to examine ways of safeguarding construction workers in the area when the blast occurred.
The IDF Spokesman said the terrorists cut through the fence during the night and planted the bombs along the road and between the hothouses. When they saw the jeep they detonated the bomb and fired at the vehicle. Kalashnikov rifles, grenades, ammunition clips and mobile phones were found near their bodies, the army said.
Last July, when he was commander of the southern Gaza district, Col. Pinhas Zuaretz had part of his leg blown off in a similar attack as he patrolled in the same area together with another colonel and soldiers.
During the morning, three Kassam rockets were fired at a settlement in the southern Gaza Strip. No one was wounded in the attacks. Before dawn, soldiers arrested a Hamas fugitive and three Palestinian terrorism suspects in an operation launched near Netzarim in the northern Gaza Strip. During the raid, an IAF helicopter fired a number of missiles into an open area to prevent armed Palestinians from reaching the site. The fugitive was later identified as Muhammad Shuka, who was involved in the planning of numerous attacks against Israelis.
In Memoriam
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