|
Apr. 15, 2008
Three soldiers killed in Gaza ambush
Yaakov Katz, JPost. com Staff and AP
Three IDF soldiers were killed and two others were wounded Wednesday after coming under heavy fire from Palestinian gunmen while patrolling the border with the Gaza Strip.
Givati soldiers were patrolling the border near Kibbutz Be’eri when they spotted a number of armed Palestinians moving towards the border in what appeared to be an attempt to infiltrate into Israel. The soldiers then crossed into Gaza to engage the Palestinians, but fell into a well-planned ambush and came under heavy gun and rocket fire.
Initially, two soldiers were killed and three were wounded, one of them seriously. The wounded were then evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where the soldier in serious condition later died of his wounds.
The fighting continued throughout most of the morning.
The soldiers who were killed were identified as Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, from Patish, Sgt. Menhash Albaniat, 20, a tracker from Kuseife in the Negev and Sgt. David Papian, 21, from Tel Aviv.
Hamas took responsibility for the attack, and vowed to continue attacks against Israel.
"We will continue to conduct many operations against the occupation, and continue to set ambushes of death against its cowardly soldiers,‘ Hamas said in a flier which was published following Wednesday morning’s attack. ’IDF soldiers going into Gaza have four choices: to be killed, captured, seriously wounded, or become psychologically traumatized."
According to reports, the gunmen managed to escape.
Earlier Wednesday, Palestinians reported that six people were killed during IDF operations in Gaza.
Hamas reported that four of its gunmen were killed and three were wounded in exchanges of fire with IDF troops. Elsewhere, an Islamic Jihad commander was targeted by an IAF missile while he rode a motorcycle in the Jabalya refugee camp. It was not clear who the sixth man was.
Meanwhile, an IDF soldier was moderately wounded when he was shot by a Palestinian sniper during ongoing counter-terror operations near Khan Yunis. The soldier was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
Also Wednesday morning, at least ten Kassam rockets were launched into Israel from Gaza. The rockets fell in open areas and did not cause any casualties. Some damage was sustained.
On Tuesday, Givati Brigade and Armored Corps troops operating in the Kissufim area fired at a Kassam launching cell, and confirmed hitting it, the IDF said. The soldiers came under heavy mortar and anti-tank fire. No troops were wounded.
The army said that IDF soldiers had shot several other armed Palestinians in the battle.
Gaza residents said IDF armored vehicles hit and damaged a mosque. The army said the mosque was full of explosives and exploded during an exchange of fire between troops and gunmen located inside.
In addition, an Israeli home was hit as Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, near the Gaza border, came under heavy mortar fire. No one was wounded, but the roof sustained mild damage.
’I always told him, ’Take care of yourself’’
Tovah Lazaroff
Apr. 17, 2008
Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, had planned to spend Wednesday evening in Beersheba with his mother, shopping for a present for his younger brother’s birthday celebration the next day.
He called the night before to remind her.
"He wanted to get his brother Ben a Play Station," his mother, Hadassah, said.
Instead, Ovdati was one of three Givati Brigade soldiers killed early on Wednesday morning as they tried to stop a border infiltration near Kibbutz Be’eri.
That evening, instead of chauffeuring Ovdati through Beersheba’s streets, Hadassah watched as her son’s body was lowered into the grave in a small military cemetery in Ofakim, surrounded by hundreds of mourners. As the sun set and the national flag fluttered overhead, soldiers fired off a salute.
So many friends and relatives came to the family’s home in Moshav Patish, on the Gaza border, that they spilled out of the house and into a large blue plastic tent set up on the lawn.
Sitting on a mattress on the floor of her living room, which had already been cleaned for Pessah, Hadassah said that she had not wanted her son to serve in a combat unit.
He could have been exempt because her husband died a year-and-a-half ago, she said.
"But he was determined to be in a combat unit. It was all he wanted,‘ said his older sister Hen, sitting on the mattress next to her mother. ’He talked of nothing else."
Eventually, Hadassah said, she relented and signed the release form so he could serve in a combat unit.
"I always told him, ’Take care of yourself." Hadassah said.
He dismissed her fears and responded, "Mother, don’t worry."
"He wasn’t afraid, just the opposite," Hen added.
So Hadassah was not concerned on Wednesday morning when her boss called her into his office and told her to sit down.
"I never imagined this."I started to hit myself from
sorrow I was so upset,"Hadassah said, as her daughter put her hand on her leg to comfort her.
"It was such a normal morning," said Hen. Then, suddenly, with a ring of the phone on her desk at work in the bank, it all fell apart.
"My mother didn’t tell me then that he was dead. Just that he was wounded and that I should come home," she said.
Matan, she said, was the kind of person who always wanted to help people. After his father’s death, he tried to fill in for him, Hen added.
"On Friday night he always made sure to come home to say kiddush for me," Hadassah said.
"He was quiet and funny,‘ said Hen. He liked computers and the Maccabi Haifa soccer team, she said. He was still too young to have future plans, she said when quizzed about what he wanted to do after the army. ’He had only been there for a year."
"Everyone loved him,‘ said Matan’s uncle Arik Ovdati. ’He was a leader in his unit. For his family he was like a present who was taken away one month before his 20th birthday."
It bothered him that no government representatives came to the funeral.
"Oh, right,‘ he said, ’I forgot, they’re on vacation."
Arik was in Haifa when he heard the news. He spent the drive down south on the phone, in hope there had been a mistake. He held onto that feeling until he was called to identify the body.
Inside the home, the few photos of Matan spread out on the sofa made a neighbor burst into tears.
"When he got on the bus to go to the army, he didn’t know he would return in a coffin," she said.
Fallen Beduin tracker from unrecognized village was proud to serve
Shelly Paz
Apr. 17, 2008
"It’s a terrible feeling to visit the home of another Beduin soldier who fought and died while serving a country that doesn’t recognize [his] village," Zeyad Saadi, chairman of the Beduin Yad Lebanim organization, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Saadi spoke as he was leaving the home of soldier Sgt. Menhash Albaniat, 20, from a northern Negev village, near Kuseife. Albaniat, an IDF tracker, was killed in Gaza earlier in the day.
"Menhesh was… considered a hero. He didn’t follow friends’ advice not to serve in the army and was proud to serve in the IDF," Saadi said.
Albaniat was evacuated to Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center early Wednesday morning after he was wounded in an exchange of fire with six gunmen just inside the Gaza security fence, near Kibbutz Be’eri. A few hours later, Albaniat’s parents and family, waiting outside Soroka’s trauma center, were informed that he had died.
Saadi attended Albaniat’s funeral, which was held Wednesday afternoon at the Kuseife cemetery.
"The family had no problem publicizing their son’s name, despite the fact that Beduin leaders and the Beduin sheikh refused to pray over him," he said.
According to Saadi, some Beduin leaders see those who serve in the IDF as "heretics."
He described the bad conditions in which the family of the dead soldier live.
"His family feels proud to belong to the State of Israel and to die for it, even thought they live in despicable conditions, in a shed with sand instead of [a] floor and with no running water.
"The government can’t abandon those who fight and die for Israel and let them live like that, just because they live in an unrecognized village. They are willing to send their children to die for a state that does nothing [for them] but sit with its arms crossed," Saadi said.
Albaniat, who was recently married, was a tracker in the Givati Brigade. He is survived by his wife, his parents, and siblings, two of whom are currently serving in the IDF.
In March, another Beduin tracker was killed along with two comrades when their vehicle drove over a bomb near Kissufim crossing.
The family of the tracker declined to release his name, reportedly so as not to incur harassment due to the controversy surrounding army service in the Beduin community.
A veteran of the IDF who reportedly worked to encourage other youth to enlist in the army, he is survived by two wives and seven children.
In Memoriam
------------------------------
Back to Timeline »
|
