Amos Najer was wounded when a missile was launched inside a closed room • 17 years later, he is still fighting in front of the Ministry of Defense demanding full recognition as a post-trauma victim
Illustration image // Photo: Michelle dot com
It was one of the worst training accidents to occur at the time, and miraculously did not end in casualties. In February 2003, a platoon sergeant in the Golan demonstrated to soldiers in a closed room in the Golan Heights how to operate an RPG projectile, when as part of the demonstration he installed a missile and pulled the trigger. Twenty-four fighters were wounded by the missile and others by the shell itself. The IDF did not spare criticism of the sergeant and called the weapons accident "stupid."
"I was sitting right in front, in the front row in front of the missile, along with six other soldiers," Amos Najer recalled. He was slightly injured according to medical sources. "I was hit by shrapnel and had a tear in my eardrum. The Ministry of Defense acknowledged a decrease in hearing and post-trauma." But the last two words are the ones that led to a long nightmare on his part, in a desperate attempt to get from the Ministry of Defense further recognition of his disability, in an attempt to get the treatment he deserves.
17 years have passed since that incident, and Amos Najer is still fighting in front of the Ministry of Defense, with the help of Adv. Eli Saban, in an attempt to get full recognition as a battle shock and post-trauma victim, to no avail. In 2006, three years after the training accident, The Defense Ministry granted him only 23 percent disability.The reason, they claimed, was that he had mental problems prior to enlistment.The claims on his part that he enlisted in Profile 97 and that the post-trauma occurred following the severe training accident fell on deaf ears.
The partial recognition prevents a manager from receiving increased assistance from the Ministry of Defense, almost as if he were half disabled. When he asked the Ministry of Defense to help him find a job, the answer was that he was disabled and rehabilitated because more than five years had passed since the training accident. He has now decided to go into battle, with an opinion that the incident caused him a 50 percent disability, and that there is no connection between the post-trauma and his condition prior to enlistment. 17 years after the incident he also reveals the horror images that accompany him to this day.
"It's delusional. Because I had one criminal case or another before enlistment they claimed that a third of the mental injury was before the military," Najer complains. He notes that although he is supposedly defined as rehabilitated, in practice his condition is serious and due to the post-trauma he is having difficulty holding a job. "I worked for a while, and when I was fired, the Ministry of Defense refused to help me. No matter how I worded the requests, they just did not move from their position."
He said that although his injury is mentally defined, he is convinced that he also has an internal physical injury caused as a result of the violent explosion inside the room. "I have had headaches for years. At first it was critical, I had wheezing in my head, in my eyes. It was terribly easy for them to put everything under the definition of post trauma, but there is no situation where there is no internal damage. Even though it was a media incident, they tried to hide my injury. There is no chance he was standing two meters from an RPG fire coming out unscathed. For the past eight months he has not been working due to post-trauma, trying to restart the attempt to get recognition from the Ministry of Defense. He is considering filing a lawsuit in court to get something moving.
A few months ago, Najer received two shocking reminders of the training accident. The first - photos he received from a friend who served with him and in which the moments after the explosion are seen. The second - the recent training accident in Tze'elim. Last June, Lt. Gen. Avichai Mor-Yosef was seriously injured in Tze'elim when he crossed a firing line without coordination with the force that fired from inside the buildings. Moore Joseph was the commander of Najer's company at the time of the life-threatening training accident. "I'm angry about what happened then. About the commanders' conduct," he says in retrospect of the events that led to the launch of the missile inside the room. It should be noted that at that time Mor-Yosef was not found guilty of what happened.
"This is a fighter who experienced a difficult and complex event, his mental injury accompanies him for many years and the state that recruited him to the Golani Brigade should provide him with proper treatment so that he can integrate into civilian life," said lawyer Eli Saban who accompanies Amos Najer in his lawsuit.
The Ministry of Defense responded: "Amos Najer was recognized in 2006 as an IDF invalid for post-trauma and a medical committee determined that he had a 23% disability. Najer was recently examined by a Supreme Medical Committee, which convened in January 2020 for a re-examination and left the degree of his disability intact. If Mr. Najer believes that his condition has worsened, he is invited to contact a medical committee, which will re-examine his condition. The Ministry of Defense wishes Mr. Najer health and complete medicine.