Jerusalem | Two officers from an IDF commando unit were killed in a “friendly fire” accident near a military base in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the report said. army.
The officers were patrolling their base when they were “misidentified and mistakenly killed by Israeli fire,” the army said in a statement.
“Huge sorrow this morning at the news of the death of two officers from the Egoz unit,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a statement, adding that the army “has launched a full investigation”.
In offering his condolences “on behalf of all the Israeli people”, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett pledged in a statement that “the necessary lessons will be learned” from the incident.
According to initial details, reported by Israeli media, the officers left the living quarters and headed for the training area around 11 p.m., presumably to patrol.
Soon after, they identified what they believed to be a suspicious individual and fired into the air. Then, a soldier from the same unit, who was apparently on patrol nearby, fired at the officers – whom he had not identified as soldiers – believing he was under fire, killing two d ‘between them.
Last week two Israeli pilots were killed when their helicopter, the victim of a technical incident, crashed at sea off Haifa.