The incident last night (Monday) near Tulkarm where an IDF soldier was killed by his comrade's fire due to a mistake in identification was the last in a row, unfortunately it is not the first incident of this kind.
The incident near Tulkarm
In the past, quite a few difficult incidents occurred due to identification failures, human errors and operational errors during operational activities, alongside training accidents and bullet discharges in recent years.
We have summarized some major events that happened in the IDF, but this is a partial list, and God forbid there is no intention to harm the memory of one or another soldier who was killed and was not mentioned in the article.
Major Itamar Elharar and the late Major Ofek Aharon
In February of this year, near the Nebi Musa base in the Jordan Valley, two IDF officers from the Aguz unit were killed due to a mistake in the identification of another officer. The fatal accident did not occur during training or as part of an operation.
Two commanders from the force went on a security mission not far from the encampment, when at one point they recognized a suspicious figure and carried out a suspicious arrest procedure, which includes shooting in the air.
The same suspicious figure - who later turned out to be a fighter from the same unit - recognized the shooting in the air as a hostile sabotage activity carried out against him and fired in response.
The victims of the disaster in the Agoz unit, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The fall of General David Marcus
General David Marcus, a Jewish colonel in the American army, joined the IDF in the War of Liberation as part of the Mahal forces (Jewish fighters from abroad), and he was even one of the leaders of the breakthrough from Burma to Jerusalem. In June 1948, Marcus went on a patrol in the Abu Gush area and informed the sentry about this , but it was replaced by another person. When he returned Marcus was asked who he was and he replied in English, a language that the new sentry did not understand. When Marcus jumped over stones on his way to the entrance, the sentry shot him and killed him.
Shot by the sentry.
The late General David Marcus, photo: Wikipedia
The disaster of the armored battalions in the Kadesh War
On November 2, 1956, during the Sinai operation, one of the worst bilateral shooting incidents in the history of the IDF took place. While armored forces were fighting a tough battle in front of a fortified Egyptian compound in Umm Toft-Abu Agila, two armored battalions of the IDF began firing at each other. This.
A tank company of the 37th Brigade that was on its way to Abu Agila was not recognized due to coordination problems and ran into an ambush by the 82nd Battalion. They thought it was an Egyptian force retreating from the compound, and opened fire.
The company, which included 10 tanks, was destroyed except for one tank.
25 Israeli soldiers were killed in the incident.
Fighters in Operation Kadesh (those photographed have no relation to the news), photo: Avraham Vared in the camp / courtesy of the IDF Archives at the Ministry of Defense
The fall of Israel's hero Shlomo Arman in a ditch
On October 8, 1973, on the third day of the Yom Kippur War, reserve soldiers fired a shell at a group of armored soldiers who approached them on foot.
Earlier, an Egyptian force attacked the fighters, and therefore the IDF suspected that this was a fraud, even though the force in front of them identified themselves as Israeli. Three soldiers were killed in the shooting, including second lieutenant Shlomo Arman, who was later awarded the decoration of heroism for his actions before his death.
The First Lebanon War: Battle of KKKS KMT
On June 9, 1982, in the first week of the First Lebanon War, a complex armored battle took place near the village of Ein A-Tina, in which Israeli forces attacked each other as a result of mistaken identity.
The two forces, sent to attack a village, arrived from different points in the night and did not recognize each other.
They opened fire at each other, and only after the courage of a soldier who jumped on a tank of the other side and shouted to him that they were Israelis, the shooting stopped.
Five officers were killed in the battle.
Fighters in Lebanon (photographers have no connection to the news), photo: Moshe Shai
The air force bombing disaster
One of the most difficult bilateral combat incidents that took place in the IDF occurred during the First Lebanon War in the difficult incident of the bombing of the 931st Battalion. On June 10, 1982, in the first week of the war, phantom planes spotted a convoy made up of armored forces and armament and refueling vehicles of the 931st Battalion from the Nahal Brigade.
The pilots recognized the vehicles as Syrian forces, and attacked them.
24 soldiers were killed and 180 wounded in the mistaken attack.
This is the most serious "fire of our forces" incident in the history of the IDF.
Tzalim A disaster
The Tzalim A disaster occurred on July 17, 1990 at the Tzalim base in the Negev.
A reservist exercise took place there, which also included live fire.
However, the coordination and control officers did not follow the exercise in real time, and thus a mistake was made in the point at which to shoot.
As a result, the fire landed on the force, IDF fighters from Battalion 9204 of the Oded Brigade (9th Brigade). Five soldiers were killed in the incident.
Tzalim II disaster
The disaster known as the Tzalim II disaster is the name of a serious operations accident in which five soldiers of a General Patrol patrol were killed on November 5, 1992, during an exercise at the Tzalim base in the Negev in which they practiced the assassination of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In the complex exercise commanded by Major General Amiram Levin , the entire top of the IDF watched, including Chief of Staff Ehud Barak and his deputy Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. During part of the exercise, which was supposed to be without live fire, the team launching two Tamuz missiles accidentally fired at the group of fighters who simulated Saddam Hussein's entourage. Five soldiers were killed in the incident.
Monument to the victims of the Tzalim II disaster in Tel Aviv, photo: Roni Shitzer
The Battle of Wadi Saluki
On May 24, 1993, at the end of a night ambush in Wadi Saluki in the security strip, one of the forces in the ambush recognized the other force as an enemy force and opened fire on it.
Four soldiers were killed in the shooting.
The mistake occurred when the forces were starting to fold, so the warning force did not recognize the second force's fold and opened fire on it.
Five soldiers were killed in the shooting.
Cherry unit disaster
On August 26, 2000, the fighters of the Dovdevan unit, under the command of the unit's commander at the time, Miki Edelstein, carried out an operation with the aim of capturing the commander of the military wing of Hamas in Yosh Muhammad Abu Hanud, who was responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis. As part of the operation, Dovdevan fighters surrounded the house where he was hiding in the village Asira al-Shamailiya near Nablus, but after the terrorists opened fire on them, the snipers of the unit mistakenly identified their comrades as terrorists and shot them to death. Three fighters were killed in the incident. Abu Nod escaped, and was later killed by a military helicopter.
The fall of Sergeant Maayan Levy
In June 2003, during a company exercise of the Nahal Brigade, the operator of a Negev machine gun lost control of the machine gun. During the stop operation, a malfunction occurred in the weapon known as a "rampant machine gun", that is, the machine gun began to fire by itself when the soldier did not have enough to hold it. As a result, the machine gun was deflected 90 degrees to the side, And a bullet hit and killed the class commander Sgt. Maayan Levy, who was lying next to the machine gun.
The fall of Sergeant Shahar Strug
In March 2018, Sergeant Shahar Strug from the Devdvan unit was killed due to the discharge of a gun bullet from his unit mate.
The incident happened due to the illegal use of a gun.
An investigative committee that looked into the incident discovered a culture of improper use of weapons in the unit, and drew conclusions against a number of officers in it.
The fighter who killed Strug was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The late Shahar Strog, photo: IDF spokesman
The fall of First Sergeant Yonatan Granot
In February 2021, a bullet from a Ruger rifle was fired at Sergeant Yonatan Granot, a Nahal soldier, at the Tevetz camp in the Jordan Valley.
Garnot, a resident of Kibbutz Ein, was mortally wounded and died of his wounds at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
In the investigation, it was determined that his death was the result of weapons crime, because the soldier who fired the weapon did not know it and was not authorized to use it.
A series of officers were dismissed and reprimanded.
The late Yonatan Garnot, photo: courtesy of the family
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